To be terrified by Farage/Reform's plans to replace the NHS with "an insurance based model"?

[Gillemeow]

It seems to have been largely overlooked by the mainstream media but Nigel Farage on the debate last night was clear that he thought the NHS should be replaced by an insurance model.

Given that most of the country are already crippled by the current cost of living crisis, how does he expect people to pay this extra cost? If employers have spare cash to do it (as in France or the USA where many get insurance via their employer), why aren't they giving decent wage rises?

His plans would penalise people with existing health conditions. And which sex would end up paying more.for insurance? The one that gives birth and goes through menopause or the one that doesn't?

In France contraception is only free if you're under 26. What if you're not? Will the right wing's phrase of choice on children change from "don't have children of you can't afford them" to "don't have sex if you can't afford it"?

People In this country are so weird about the NHS- it's like it's forbidden to talk at all about how the model is completely broken. People act like we should be grateful for the basics of bad healthcare. I'm terrified of taking myself or children to the hospital- the last time I took my son we waited for 8 hours.
Can we not have an evidence based discussion about different models around the world and what might work best without descending into moral outrage.

So we get the same NHS treatment but someone makes a profit from it?

What we need is strong management of the NHS and get the some value for money from the money pit it is. Bit by bit the NHS is already getting privatised.

My worry would be for those who are disabled and elderly.. how would they afford the premiums and wouldnt existing conditions not be covered? People can't even afford to go to a dentist where I come from, let alone private healthcare.

If it’s state healthcare based on insurance premiums then the state pays for people who cannot work etc. It’s like this across the EU and imho healthcare is better than what the NHS offers. There aren’t any conditions excluded as it’s not private.

There are no NHS dentists for adults anymore here either, well, in theory there are but good luck finding one!

The NHS is on its knees after 14 years Tory government. You're right, something's got to change.

Nobody is worshipping big government.

Labour is not socialist at all.

Some serious concept and vocabulary issues on this thread.

Two points behind a party who are about to get wiped out? I can't get worked up.

To everyone saying 'it's never going to happen' A poll has just shown the Tories retaining 39 seats. Farage will 100% try to stage a takeover depending on who is left. It may be that Reform become, if not the opposition, the main policy driver of the right. Have a look at their joke of a manifesto-that may well be what people think they are voting for.

I absolutely do not want a tiny rump of the Conservative Party, I want one that is large enough to have a good look at itself, tack back to the centre and perform good oppositional scrutiny of what is inevitable to be an enormous Labour majority.

There are no words adequate to describe how much I despise Nigel Farage and his paper-thin 'man of the people who just talks common sense' veneer and it really frightens me just how many people are taken in by him.

Oh so long you do not have to pay.

Those that can pay and their employer.

I did some research for a boss on employee private healthcare it was with AXA. It worked out at £25 pcm on average. I thought that was a good investment in the workforce and good for business.

I suspect the same.

@Hparker1 totally agree. I want a healthy, non extreme opposition which is excellent for democracy.

I would never have voted Tory in the past, find the current party bizarrely to the right and wish they would return to pretty sane party they were sat in the late 90s.

I quite agree with you, this is very likely what Farage would like to see happen after the election. I to think of him as Leader of the Opposition. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Much as I want the Tories gone, we do need a decent opposition.

@Pigletsoink very good.
Political debates here are usually not a big success 😂
I was born in Communist Czechoslovakia btw.

Agreed. I do not wish for the Tories to be destroyed at all. It’s very important we have an effective opposition. The One Nation Tories like Rory Stewart, Justine Greening, John Major (I’m aware two of these are no longer active Tories, just using them as an example) etc must wrestle the party back form the crazies like Braverman, Cates and Gullis. Sensible, pragmatic Tories is what we need in opposition.

If we had a strong One Nation centre right party which is socially liberal but economically more to the right, which openly pushed for a better economic relationship with Europe, I’d abandon current Labour and vote for it in a heartbeat.

This current iteration must die so the Tories can be reborn like a Phoenix, shorn of the stink of Farage and the Brexit/UKIP/Reform disease. Let the cranks go back to shouting at clouds whilst waiting for Wetherspoons to open.

In regard to healthcare the NHS cannot continue in its current form. It needs to be transformed but not in the way Farage and his American backers want.

If they had their way 10% of us would have exceptional healthcare, the rest would be genuine wage slaves to employers due to our health being tied to our employment. Those who lose employment would be praying we lived in a neighbourhood where neighbours knit blankets to sell to pay towards our bankrupting cancer bills. Those who don’t have good employers will live in meth addicted hopeless neighbourhoods.

Since there are obviously people who have not read the entire thread, I'll recap:

There are two completely different "Health Insurance" models - the "American" commercial model and the European "Health Fund" model.

The American model is the model that most people quite rightly are very afraid of. Everything has a cost, everything is done for profit, and a very poor, basic public health service is provided for those who cannot afford health insurance. People who cannot afford the horrendous healthcare costs, even just for basic and vital issues such as giving birth, are in many cases left to fend for themselves. This is the model that the Conservatives are accused of wanting to move towards by starving the NHS of funds and forcing those who can afford to pay (and many who really cannot afford it) into the arms of the private healthcare providers - i.e. Rationing by price.

The European model is not very far removed from the original UK "National Insurance" model - Universal healthcare, free at the point of delivery, is paid for through employer and employee contributions, with a top-up from the government. Everybody is covered - the more you earn, the more you contribute (just like UK tax and NI); non-waged (students, pensioners, unemployed, disabled, sick, carers, etc) are covered by the government. Nobody is excluded because of any existing conditions and nobody pays a higher premium because of any particular condition. Exactly the same principle as in the UK. In terms of costs, the European schemes I have experienced are all similar to the UK NI contributions. I pay approx 1% more where I live compared with the UK.

The first difference about the European model is that the money is ring-fenced and politicians are not allowed to use healthcare as a political football.

The second difference is in the delivery of the healthcare. There are public hospitals, private hospitals and clinics, hospitals run by charities, hospitals attached to universities and medical training centres. The "Health Fund" pays the providers according to an agreed tariff - e.g. a hip operation "costs" the health service exactly the same regardless of where it is carried out. The patient doesn't pay anything.

The third major difference where I live, which has little to do with funding or delivery, is that health care and social care are integrated. So an issue such as bed blocking is far less common - people can leave hospital and go into rehab or social or elderly care because there is an integrated chain. This of course should also happen in the UK - the Health Minister is officially the "Secretary of State for Health and Social Care" but successive ministers have seemingly not understood the second part of the job title.

For clarity - I'm not advocating for Farage. I'm just clarifying how different systems work. Nor do I believe that the NHS is "incurable" or that a move towards a European model is even possible.

I know someone voting for reform as a fuck you to the Tory’s as she’s worried about tax increases.

meanwhile back in the real world if we want decently funded services we are going to have to have higher taxes to pay for it

on some level she most know what she’s voting for is something like this?

A pearl of a sensible post. The Tories have been looking at this visiting hospitals, health centres in Europe as well as the USA. As have labour. The Tories bottled it, labour may as well. To unravel the NHS mess may be beyond them. 🤷

You joke about the MRLP but under Lord Such they actually had an awful lot of good policies. Some of them, after being publicly jeered at, went into main stream policy within a few years. Bus passes for pensioners, free tv licence for old people, gays legally allowed to have sex at the same age as heterosexual people. Plus he was an absolute diamond of a guy, a really lovely gentleman that was actually really shy and loved a cup of tea and watching wildlife etc. He was a close family friend and used to spend summers with us, one of his books was written in my bedroom while I was camping in the living room with my sister. Was so sad to hear he killed himself.

The crunch will come sooner rather than latet for the NHS model. We have more people living longer but in poorer health. Not just an ageing population but people living longer (or at all) with chronic conditions and disabilities.

I would favour a properly planned move to a European style social insurance model.

The dirty secret is while politicians talk piously about "Our NHS" that model is informally being operated in the UK anyway for a lot of middle class people, including those who work in the public sector.

I work for a public body and part of our overall compensation package is a group private health policy. I can use it to get things like consultant referrals, yearly health check ups, physio and scans for free. I can even be referred in to it my my NHS GP. I use it to deal with niggling things that tske forever to deal with on the NHS - for example I have a tight pirformis muscle that causes lower back pain - I got private phayso asap on my work plan and has made a huge difference.

It's happening anyway so it may as well happen in a proper planned way that brings everyone with us, not just people like me who are lucky enough to have a well paid job wirh good conditions.

From pp it doesn’t sound like much needs to be changed. Just ring fence the NI money for nhs as it should’ve been all along. And agree that taking it out of political arena and having a long term view is sensible.

^This exactly.

The problem is that when in power every political party puts their hand in the till (NI income) because the public demand lower taxes and none of the parties are honest or brave enough to tell the public that everyone needs to pay more.

Do you think that the public do demand lower taxes?

In happy to pay more IF it means that public services are funded properly. Not vanity projects.

Agree they want to just line their own pockets and that of their mates

As I said above, it's not run like that overseas. If you have insurance, you are covered and in most cases the employer meets at least some of the cost (as they do in the UK already for those with private insurance).

The NHS isn't that badly funded, but it is badly managed and priorities need to change. There seems little point to me making someone wait three years for a hip operation which means the outcomes will be poor, whereas if you did it within three months the outcomes will be good.

However it is true that you have to pay quite a lot of contributions in some countries and GP appointments are quite expensive (though I think most people would rather pay £20 for an appointment and actually get one). And there are different phone numbers to call depending on which insurer you are with (but we already have a two tier system with eg orthodontists, who give the better appointment slots to their private patients - kids having NHS treatment have to miss school).