To ask how the NHS will be saved by labour

[mummytwoshoes]

Currently reading a lot of conservative bashing on FB etc about the privatisation of the NHS, I've seen the labour promise to 'save the NHS' but I haven't seen anything about how they will fund this. AIBU to ask if anyone knows?

Excellent points Blackbeard

Because the NHS is a black hole where money goes to die and if we don't plug the hole with billions it won't function.

Whereas private healthcare really isn't that expensive. I pay about £40 a month for all in.

Kittykat Where is your evidence that the NHS has moved down the rankings? In 2014, the Commonwealth fund put it first.

roarityroar nice that you can afford it. But please remember your private health insurance won't help you in the case of a serious accident, or critical illness requiring intensive care, you would be relying on the NHS for that. Let's hope there will be a hospital with enough beds and staff when you need them.
And don't forget once you've had a serious illness your premiums on your insurance will rocket.

Yes, I wonder how far that £40 a month would be representative of most people's health insurance costs especially people with chronic illnesses or disabilities. And how can we say people can afford that cost but can't possibly afford to pay more tax? Which option would actually be more expensive? And which one makes for a better quality health service and a fairer society?

I'm not that interested in equality of outcome but I think the question of whether extensive private schemes could be more cost effective than the current monolith is an interesting one

What i want to know is how many emergency admissions to NHS hospitals have been caused by unwell ppl having to travel to
disability benefit assesments they are not fit enough to travel to. Many have collapsed just before/during/after assessments. IMO the NHS should be sending the companies doing this assessing the bill!

Would the NHS collect stats on something like this?

If people paid for there own healthcare then maybe they would take more interest in being healthy

Thing is, we do pay for our own health care but are caught in a trap of not being able to afford an alternative health care provider. I know it's not as simple as that but it isn't much more complicated.

I have a chronic illness - MS - I am stuck with the NHS good and bad (maternity care was fucking dreadful btw). I would like a discussion about whether something is better for the next generation. It's the fear of talking about it that gets me.

Kursk, well said. 60% of people my age are overweight. Many of the health issues are caused by that including all these amputations for diabetes and all the rest. If you knew you would have to pick up the tab if you got up to 20 stone and needed all kinds of extra medical help you might make sure you never reached that level. I have used my GP twice in 15 years. That is the full extent of my NHS use in that period. Now obviously I am lucky - I am not saying otherwise - but other factors play a part. I am not 20 stone. I don't drink or smoke. I don't over eat. I try to exercise and go on walks. I don't each much processed food at all. There is definitely co-relation at my age (55) in looking after yourself and your illness chances particularly as you get older. I don't take any pills at all and have never even taken the contraceptive pill.

I am not saying people aren't unlucky also in being ill and of course it's not their fault but a lot of the NHS costs are caused by things people are responsible for and I include in that extreme sports people who then have a crash and it's their fault not just the obese couch potatoes.

Well, leaving aside the delightful suggestion that people both poor and fat should be punished for their greed and laziness by suffering and dying with no medical care except to note that apparently you have the empathy and emotional intelligence of a rock - my curiosity isn't actually about that. It's this dichotomy which asserts that on the one hand, people can't afford to pay any more tax to fund the NHS but apparently they can afford health insurance. Won't that actually mean they will have to pay more than the proposed tax increase anyway?

If people were allowed to contract out of the NHS, as it were, wouldn't that go some way to reducing demand on NHS services. Please don't flame me for suggesting it, I am just asking the question.

Radishal Contracting out would and does reduce demand - tis private medicine. If you allowed people to reduce their tax as well, you would cut funding and use. People who use the NHS more would find this cost inefficient, so it would make things worse. The NHS is actually quite cost-effective nowadays.
Private medicine tends to be more expensive as it has redundancy built in, you are paying for empty beds. Waiting times are a cost saving measure.
Captain More tax for the NHS makes your individual NHS experience negligibly better, private healthcare offers you personally a much better experience - money spent on private healthcare is worthwhile for the individual, more tax is less so.
Ideally we would charge nominal costs for some services (as we already do for dentists, opticians, prescriptions) to reduce unnecessary and wasteful usage.

Mother €400 that you get back is not a nominal cost, just a cashflow bollocks.
£20 non-refundable for GP, £50 for A&E - immediate discount/no charge for (some?) benefits.

carol you are a wee bit of date www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/26/nhs-comes-14th-in-europe-wide-survey-on-health-systems (sorry for the lack of nice link).

The NHS destruction has been swift.

Kitty

This report uses different measurements and relative importance. interestingly it is annual, so changes can be tracked over time. In 2010, after 13 years of Labour governement, they were 18th, scoring 666 points 2010 report
In your link in 2016, they were 14th, scoring 736 points. So 6 years of Conservative led government leads to 70 point (10%) and 4 places improvement.
I could point out they were 15th in 2006, so actually went down in the last 4 years of Labour.

@roarityroar, sorry I am unclear what outcome you are referring to when you said you are not interested in equality of outcome. Please can you explain? Thank you.

people can't afford to pay any more tax to fund the NHS but apparently they can afford health insurance. Won't that actually mean they will have to pay more than the proposed tax increase anyway

Well, why do you get to dictate what I spend my money on? I'm a higher rate tax payer so quite a lot of my money already gets poured into a system where it is wasted by inefficiencies and middle management - both of which have had decades to sort themselves out.

My healthcare is more than £40 a month but it's salary sacrificed through tax efficient work schemes. I opted in as it give me the flexibility I need around my career, which allows me to be a higher rate tax payer. If I had to rely on the NHS (as I am doing for maternity, because going private outside of London isn't really an option) I would waste huge amounts of work time in appointments and assessments scheduled for the middle of the day and apparently rearranged for no reason at no notice.

I don't want healthcare I have to work around, I want to be able to book an appointment to suit me - which is why I would never support sacrificing my private healthcare to pour more money into the NHS black hole. Most of my colleagues share my view.

I don't want healthcare I have to work around, I want to be able to book an appointment to suit me - which is why I would never support sacrificing my private healthcare to pour more money into the NHS black hole. Most of my colleagues share my view.

Let's hope you never need A+E or a NICU then.

It won't be saved by labour or any other party unless they stop politicising it, come up with a cross party body and do something about PFI contracts.

I've said it before and will say it again. There is not privatisation in the NHS as people understand it i.e. people needing insurance or to pay for things like a US style system.
There are private companies providing services to the NHS (which started when labour was in power, although they conveniently forget that) but there is no cost passed on to the end user of the service.

Again, over 50% of NHS funds go to private companies, always has, always will.

If people paid for there own healthcare then maybe they would take more interest in being healthy

Well that's a really fucking helpful sentiment to those of us with inherited genetic diseases.