Last night's question on private healthcare.

[1dayatatime]

Cost aside, would you use private healthcare if a loved one were on a long waiting list for surgery.

I thought Starmer was not being honest. If it was one of his children,for instance,I bet he would. I mean he accepted 16k from a 'donor' for suits and glasses.Really shocking. I am so disappointed with Labour.

Oh and re your question..yes!

Also..relative back and forth to GP aged 33...told IBS. This went on for a year .Relative 'ideologically' opposed to private healthcare eventually caved. Went private diagnosed with bowel cancer...too late and died

This.

BIossomtoes · Today 15:05
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If a child’s life was in danger they’d be treated by the NHS”

Yes but finding out that their life is in danger in the first place is the issue!

I was referred for an urgent ultrasound by my GP a couple of months ago. Should be a 2 week pathway. My appointment was 5 weeks later. The ultrasound identified a tumour on one of my organs. I need a CT or MRI to identify whether it’s benign or malignant. Again, urgent referral, again two week pathway. I was able to book an appointment for 15 weeks later if I was prepared to travel out of area. 18 week wait at my local (“unsatisfactory”, incidentally) hospital.

I had breast cancer in 2016. Got my mammogram through in 8 days, biopsy 10 days later and was in for mastectomy within 2 weeks.

I suspect that lots of people don’t realise just how much worse the NHS waiting times have become in recent years.

I would like to hope that paediatric appointments would be more efficient - I’d give mine up for a child - but I fear that they’re probably not.

Until they don't

The fact is the socialist Starmer spoke on behalf of his family.
He spoke on behalf of his OH.
I guess it was easy for him to say he and his family would "NEVER" use private HC. But ask those suffering from chronic knee/hip pains and constantly being told to - "you don't meet the criteria" and the long waiting lists, if they could afford most would go for it

IMO, watching a loved one with knee/hip problems, pain management, Mental health problems, ongoing problems - if one could afford private health care, most likely the would go for it

Therefore, you decide if the saying, never say never is a myth or not

A cautionary tale re labour MP's = The long-standing MP, first black woman Labour MP Ms D Abbott who has been there at the top of the Labour hierarchy banged on about colleagues sending kids to private schools. YOU KNOW WHAT SHE DID NEXT

But the same logic could be applied to private education?

It's interesting isn't it, because I strongly suspect that the reason he wouldn't use private healthcare (does this include dentristry btw???) is because of his current position as leader of the Labour Party and that it would look bad, not because of any particular idealistic viewpoint. This may or may not be the actual case, but those are my instincts when I think about it, which doesn't make him look good in my eyes.

Whereas if someone like Angela Rayner said the same, I'd completely believe her as that is totally in line with her whole political ethos.

Yes of course. I’m amazed by the number of people who have private health care and choose not to use it. Using the NHS is a last resort for me

They were talking about it on the Today programme this morning. I do think he isn't really thinking about how many middle class people working for large corporations will have private healthcare as part of their renumeration package. I think he's trying to suggest he's principled but it comes across as holier than thou. And the stupid thing is it would be quite easy to answer it as 'well of course, we all would do what we can to help our nearest and dearest when they are in pain. What the Labour Party has done ever since we created the NHS in 1948 is extend that principle to everyone in the country, we all help everyone in the country to access good quality healthcare because that is what we do in a decent country, we look after each other'.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't like him and I won't be voting for him (don't know who the flip I will vote for), but isn't the point that if the NHS was properly funded none of us would need private healthcare.
My OH is a staunch labour supporter and I genuinely don't know if he would ever use it for himself. I might overrule him on the kids tho

Indeed.
Which makes some people think that if VAT is being introduced for private schools, private healthcare could be next.

When my late husband first started to have kidney problems, resulting in a diagnosis of end stage renal failure in 1999, we had to use BUPA (provided by my employer) to get access to a consultant in a reasonable timeframe, and had to continue doing so until 2004 shortly before he started dialysis and the NHS stepped in. And the same was true between 1996 and 2019, when he died, for any diabetic care at all. So I have lived with an inadequate health service for nearly 30 years, and seen it get systematically worse over that time, so take issue with your comment only referencing the last 14 years. If it hadn’t have been for private health care between 1998 and 2003 he would have died 15 years earlier.

I had to when I lost the feeling in my legs as it was going to be a 2 year wait to see a neurologist & I was terrified if I waited that long I would be in a wheelchair. It went against all my principles, but I was scared I wouldn't be able to care for ds, who was still technically a child at that point. We also did when exh started with the symptoms of MS, I was only 8 weeks off having ds, we didn't know if exh had a brain or spinal tumour, he had gone blind out of the blue driving to work. I've seen it from both sides, I've gone private & had NHS treatment in a private hospital, I think using up empty theatre & scanning slots for NHS work is a good idea, using private scanners must work out cheaper than buying & staffing additional scanners in the NHS & doing NHS operations at different times like in evenings & weekends in private hospitals must be better than paying bank staff to enable NHS hospitals to operate at those times. I was in & out quicker, only had to be in an hour before my theatre slot & as my letter & drugs to take home were ready as soon as I came back from theatre was able to be discharged promptly as soon as they were happy I was fit to go home, no having prescriptions in a massive queue to be filled, other than my hysterectomy when I stayed overnight the longest I waited to be discharged after an operation was 2 hours.

You pose a hard question here. Would I jump the queue because I could afford to? No, I wouldnt. Would I pay for my adult child to jump the queue? Well, probably. But they wouldn't let me.

It's tough, but if you believe in the NHS, then you have to believe in it. I don't think he's a liar. I think he's made a tough choice that his family support.

I understand why people would, and do, jump the queue. But the answer to the issue is not "keep jumping until you can jump no more" the answer is to have a fully functioning NHS.

Some private hospitals have ITU, I know the one my sil is having her treatment for breast cancer does. She ended up choosing to have her treatment done privately on my brother's private health because the NHS were dragging their feet from when the results of her mammogram to seeing a consultant to doing the scans & the lymph node dye test to then scheduling her surgery. If she had gone NHS, she may not have had her surgery yet, but going private, she has had her operation, healing time & is now in the middle of chemotherapy. I always thought that for cancer the NHS would be unbeaten, but obviously with the state it is in now it just isn't.

I’m thinking that the latter spot on - he hasn’t need to make that decision before. His parents were poor so out of question for them , he himself is probably in good health, his children are still young.
I suspect he lives in a good area of London by now so this question probably didn’t arised as a choice for him. And it’s good but he clearly didn’t thought it through.
It’s funny though as this question is always about money. Sunak couldn’t pretend he hasn’t got enough money so he had no choice for answer. But it looked like he said yes because he cares about loved ones whereas Stamer doesn’t.

He wangled a personal exemption from tax limitations on his public sector pension.

I don't think he's averse to special treatment at all.

That’s not true though.

https://www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/news/national/23407383.starmer-scrap-pension-tax-break-reversing-lifetime-allowance-move/

I'd encourage anyone who can afford private to use private.

I know it shouldn't be the case that Private is for wealthy and NHS is for those who can't afford private etc but if everyone that could afford private, used it, it would free up NHS at least a little.. (not that I'm any kind of expert on such things)

If I had the means and my kid was seriously ill, I'd go private without a thought.

Back when the NHS was half decent and hadn't been run into the ground, I never would have considered private healthcare. I don't agree it helps the NHS for those who can afford to pay, to do so. It devalues it (imo).

But now we have waiting lists of several months just to get a test to see what might be wrong to stat to consider if anythign can be done to help - I'm not so sure.

But I also don't really think this is the right question to ask a potential PM. It was a loaded question because it asks them to hypothetically make decisions that are unlikely to ever be theirs alone. e.g. if it was a spouse that needed surgery, their spouse would surely have the final say; if it was a child, it would be a joint parental decison. And none of those other parties are standing for office. The right one to ask (IMO) is 'would YOU use private healthcare if YOU were on a long lst for surgery'.

He has subsequently said he will retain the exemption for senior public sector workers.

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/pensions-and-retirement/labour-public-sector-tax-pension-2898569

He could rip up his own statutory instrument at any time, it's a personal exemption.

He hasn't.

They're going to cherry pick who is in and who who is out. The situation will end up being a blanket exemption for public sector DB schemes.

https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/Sigh-of-relief-as-labour-drops-plans-to-bring-back-lifetime-alloanwce.php

Oh no, he's hanging on to after all!