to think that the NHS should NOT be privatised?

[LeftWingTwat]

I am not arguing for no reform, all organisations can end up with waste/corruption etc. etc. However, reform doesn't NOT have to mean privatisation.

It is a myth the private sector is more efficient, what it is is more profitable, but profit has become the measure of success. Profit should not be the measure of success for healthcare. It should have no part of healthcare. When it does we can see the stark results in the US and it is US companies who are circling. US companies who have spent billions, billions of dollars lobbying their own government for the right to make enough off healthcare to not only have enough for themselves but have billions surplus to lobby with. While people die.

Privatisation of healthcare is based on the myth that people's healthcare experience won't change too much, that you will still be able to afford what you have now. This will not happen.

The government promised to protect the NHS. The government, elected without majority, is deliberately taking it apart piece by piece without mandate from the people, this is not democracy. The government is taking it apart without consulting the people. Governments are supposed to be the servants of the people, our representatives, rather than our masters, cutting up and parceling out what we pay for in taxes for their own profits and for the profits of companies beyond our democratic reach. Companies that will not just suck out money from the system but from our country in tax loopholes and tax havens.

This affects us all.

[Callisto]

The NHS is broken and has been for some time. For some reason it is impossible to have a sensible discussion about how appalling it is and how appallingly it treats its most vulnerable patients without it descending into a bun fight about how wonderful it is and how anyone who says different is obviously a bastard right-winger who care nothing for the vulnerable (much like discussions on immigration, islamism etc).

I don't know how one would ever go about fixing this obselete money-vampire, but dismantling and putting back together in a more sensible way seems a good start.

[Catchingmockingbirds]

Yanbu.

[Lovelygoldboots]

I was referred to Assura last year via my gp for a skin condition. Saw the dermatologist who told me I had skin cancer and needed a biopsy for confirmation. Left appointment very distressed. Four months later and numerous phone calls Assura still would not give me a date for a biopsy. I contacted my gp and asked him to refer me to the hospital. Six weeks later I had an appointment and biopsy. A further six weeks later had surgery. My feeling is privatized elements of NHS are happy to take gp referrals but not so keen to actually treat you. My initial appointment with Assura would have cost my gp practice but was a waste of time.

[LurkingBeagle]

YABU.
Forget the US. Ask the French or the Swiss or the Germans if they want our system. (They won't bite your hand off).
The NHS is what passes for religion in the UK, as Callisto says.

[LeftWingTwat]

The US is important because it is US companies who are taking pieces of it. That is where the government is looking.

Looking at Switzerland is more of a smokescreen because of how the country makes its money.

[LeftWingTwat]

I have NOT argued against reform.

I have argued AGAINST privatisation.

Conflating the two serves no purpose.

[Lovelygoldboots]

But what would be better? Bolting privatized elements on is not working either. Leftwing is right about the proposal to exempt health care companies from capital gains tax. That is only on the table due to lobbying from these companies.

[LurkingBeagle]

I am not in favour of a US system (although sadly, that is what the present government seems to want). However, the arguments against reform along the lines of a European social-insurance style model are unconvincing. The left tends to generate fear by convincing people that no NHS inherently means poor people will get no treatment. This is mendacious nonsense.

[LeftWingTwat]

btw what does The NHS is what passes for religion in the UK even mean?!?

Is religion "bad"? Is it a "bad" thing to believe healthcare should be universal and free at the point of delivery?

[LeftWingTwat]

The left tends to generate fear by convincing people that no NHS inherently means poor people will get no treatment. This is mendacious nonsense.

No it means they will get a LOWER LEVEL of treatment, based on ability to pay.

But then I believe in spreading wealth, wealth EARNED off the backs of low paid workers.

[LurkingBeagle]

Obviously it means it is revered, it attracts zealots and any criticism of it treated with the reaction a spot of blasphemy would have attracted in circa 1400 As your post amply demonstrates.

And all this despite the fact that it's currently killing rather a lot of people.

[LurkingBeagle]

All you are demonstrating is that you know very little about the alternatives. Or are being mendacious.

[projectbabyweight]

YANBU

[Lovelygoldboots]

The only way a private health care system could work is if everyone has insurance. The proposals to make health care companies exempt from corporation tax are supposed to put private health care providers on an equal footing with the NHS. I wonder how many members of the house of Lords have shares in these companies?

[meddie]

My fear with the intrusion of private businesses into the NHS is that they will cherry pick the easy single health care problems. Like varicose vein repair, cataracts etc.
If you have multiple or chronic health issues, or are elderly they wont be so interested, as these are not profitable. Care for those with multiple health issues will be disjointed and patchy or left to whats left of a severely run down and underfunded NHS.
Profit has no place in care, it becomes the over arching reason for how a company functions, when the primary reason should be care for those who are sick and vulnerable.

[LeftWingTwat]

Obviously it means it is revered, it attracts zealots and any criticism of it treated with the reaction a spot of blasphemy would have attracted in circa 1400 As your post amply demonstrates.



You mean people are being tortured and put to death?!?!

[LeftWingTwat]

meddie

Exactly. Cherry picking is exactly what they'll do on the current road.

They are not looking to Europe.

And completely agree that profit has no place in care. I think the care homes scandal as amply demonstrated that.

[LeftWingTwat]

BTW I've signed the petitions. I just wasn't sure whether MN would delete the thread if I started off with one.

[LurkingBeagle]

LWT - all you are proving is why it's impossible to have a grown-up debate about healthcare provision in this country. Shouldn't you be at school or revising for GCSE politics?

You like the NHS - great - happy for you. YOU pay for it. I would rather give my money to BUPA and know that I am going to get a private room without MRSA and access to cancer drugs that are available to other Europeans who don't have the NHS system.

Not because I am pro-a US system, but simply because this should not be too much to ask in a civilised country in 2013.

[MoreBeta]

The thing that always strikes me about the whole 'privatising the NHS' debate is that no one ever mentions that all GP surgeries and all hospital consultants are already in the private sector and always have been from the very start of the NHS. The private sector has always been contracted in by the NHS.

This is a famous and well known quote from Aneurin Bevan about his difficulties in overcoming opposition from doctors to the NHS.

"On the "appointed day", 5 July 1948, having overcome political opposition from both the Conservative Party and from within his own party, and after a dramatic showdown with the British Medical Association, which had threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service, Bevan's National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force. After 18 months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, but without compromising on the fundamental principles of his NHS proposals. Bevan later gave the famous quote that, in order to broker the deal, he had "stuffed their mouths with gold". Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in England and Wales were nationalised and came under Bevan's supervisory control as Health Minister.

The private sector has always had a huge sway in the NHS and it has always been about the profit motive. Gordon Brown even launched PFI into hospitals which in many ways reversed the principle of 'nationalisation' of hospitals that Bevan implemented.

[LeftWingTwat]

LurkingBeagle

What?! You are the one comparing a discussion to 15th century deaths!!

Private hospitals don't protect against MRSA, it began in the US, it's rife over there. The reason we know that it's in the NHS so much is because it's public, whereas it's too easily covered up in private organisations.

[LeftWingTwat]

Oh I'm not letting New Labour off the hook for beginning this thing when they could have gone on a different course. Pissed me off at the time, pisses me off now.

But this is just taking off all the brakes.

[LurkingBeagle]

Please try to keep up. You mentioned deaths, I said that criticising the NHS was treated in a similar way to blasphemy.

I live in a country with no MRSA problem in either its public or private hospitals. The healthcare staff here are appalled that we still have Crimean-style wards and shared bathrooms. They think that's revolting and backward (which it is). Of course, no one will ever admit that's an infection control issue. I have no idea whether it explains the whole MRSA issue.

The NHS should not be revered. There are 1200 deaths (at least) for which it would be responsible. Imagine the uproar if that was Nestle or ICI?