Why would Reform voters accept that they will scrap the NHS?

[NEGUY82]

Even when you present them with pretty undeniable proof they wants to do it they just say "lefty propaganda, he said he won't" - well of course he says he won't it would cost him the election.

Who is 'telling lies'?

I live in France. The ambulance service isn't awful, that's just not true. Mine arrived in 10 minutes. Neighbours small DC was taken ill and a helicopter arrived in minutes. Player broke his leg at a local rugby match and again a helicopter arrived in minutes.

Would you? If you had something like a heart attack and ended up needing surgery and in intensive care, the cost would be tens of thousands of pounds. Do you have that sort of money lying around?

It take years to reform the NHS, and Farage wouldn’t be politically suicidal enough to take away a health service for 70 odd million people, too much outcry.

He can’t sell it off even if he wanted to, the unions would call a strike and every doctor and nurse would do it.People would die in masses. The NHS would fall apart.

He would have to change the way tax and NI is paid too because that pays for the NHS so to bring in a private health insurance would mean changes to way people pay for it.

He wants to bring in more private sector investment, working in partnership with a free healthcare system.

Every party knows we need to
make changes but it’s too easy to bury their heads in sand and ignore the problem and make it someone else’s.

The system is already changing. Half the people I speak to are using work private medical or Benendon.

You can’t be denied coverage for a preexisting condition in the U.S.

https://www.hhs.gov/answers/health-insurance-reform/can-i-get-coverage-if-i-have-a-pre-existing-condition/index.html

I do. Many do. Almost a third of pensioners live in a household with more than £1m net worth, for example.

There is massive public resistance to increasing taxes and the rate needed to bring our healthcare spending to European averages let alone deal with demographics.

Wouldn’t it be better to design ways to try to channel some of that money to ease pressure on our healthcare system, eg by facilitating private insurance, so that the state’s limited resources can be focused on those who need it.

Lol...but they can adjust your premiums....which is what happens. They make them so expensive that you can't afford them.

The for the UK is priorities and governments lack focus because they are chasing their tails responding to various crisis.

Healthcare is improving and this government is doing a lot to improve it. It takes time to reverse years of cuts.

We have an aging population many have complicated health needs. Ultimately this has to be paid for. This idea that insurance will resolve this is utter nonsense, because insurance companies need to make money. If you insure yourself with pre-existing conditions your premiums will reflect the risk to the insurance and likelihood of claims.

If you think paying at point is a good idea then consider that 50% of us will get cancer at some point.....that's not going to be a few thousand.... possibly could be over 150k. Same for heart surgery. Think about the costs of having a child.... eye watering.

People talk about France but I've already reflected on how much they pay in. Employer and individual it's close to 24%....that's a lot more than people are paying in the UK.

So if you want French healthcare then vote for a party that's going to tax you an additional 9% to cover it.

If you add lies on top of lies it STILL doesn't make them true.

The article is entirely consistent with the Reform Healthcare policy that the NHS will remain free at the point of use and that any Reform Government would explore alternative funding models such as the French insurance based model.

I fully understand that you dislike Farage and Reform but posting deliberate false information with no supporting evidence is not the way to run a thread and probably against MN rules. @mumsnet.

I also would not vote for Reform but based on actual facts like the cost of their policies does not balance with tax revenue.

There are plenty of credible angles to criticise all political parties without making shit up like a vote for Reform will mean your first born child will be sacrificed.

I see you CBA to actually read what I linked to.

Yes. Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies can’t refuse to cover you or charge you more just because you have a “pre-existing condition”

Lol...

But your answer seems to combine: “its eyewateringly expensive” with the idea that the govt will pay for it “by reversing cuts”.

Healthcare spending rose in real terms through every year of austerity. There were no ‘years of cuts’ in real terms.

Nor is it a matter of just “focusing” once we’ve got past a few short term crises. No govt has successfully sorted this out becuase the problem is structural.

Healthcare will become even more eyewateringly expensive as the population ages.

Bringing in new revenue sources is the only serious way to deal with that.

Why would you want to discourage people who want to insure to pay for their own care? I’d run it as a parallel system with tax breaks for health insurance premiums.

On profit margins: health insurance profit margins are about 5%. These firms are often largely owned by pension funds and big institutional investors anyway, ie as least some portion of that profit goes back into the pockets of the population.

And we rely on companies that take a profit margin for all sorts of crucial aspects of life: supermarkets for example. Would food distribution run better if the govt ran all shops and supermarkets?

I wouldnt vote reform, but the NHS is an overfunded, inefficient monolith. It needs root and branch reform.

It’s failing us all. 🤷‍♀️

The myth that the NHS is overfunded is incredibly persistent even though it’s patently false. Most Western countries spend more per capita on healthcare than we do.

What I would really like to know is where this myth comes from. Is there a newspaper which keeps repeating it?

Oh yes, the leadership of Reform must be salivating over those investment opportunities. Like any fool can believe that a service in trouble can be improved by squeezing profit out of it. Utterly idiotic. 🙄

So why are so many Americans priced out of healthcare once they get a serious illness. Why is American healthcare so expensive that many can't even afford it. 27 million Americans have zero healthcare cover that close to 10% of the population.

Trumps opinion is it's not the states responsibility to provide healthcare.... unbelievable when you consider it's the worlds largest economic power.

Insurance works while you can afford to pay it. That often relies on someone working and having a company scheme. Before Obamacare the figure was double that.

Your positive experiences of the NHS are great. I have some too. But some appalling ones also.

Best to look beyond personal experiences to reputable verified statistical outcomes. The U.K. has less GPs per head of population than any comparable country, worst survival rates for cancer and many other serious illnesses in Europe and the U.K. ‘s own Care Quality Commission recently reported that a majority of maternity units are failing! It’s not a rosy picture.

The argument for private provision of some bits of the health system is that they may be able to provide a better and cheaper service than the NHS directly. If you’ve ever bought anything from a profit-making enterprise you know this can sometimes make sense. Sometimes not, obviously.

What only an idiot would do is note that Tesco makes a 2% profit margin and think that you could therefore reduce your food costs by 2% by collecting it all yourself from the suppliers. Or that the farmers make a few percent so you should save money by doing the farming yourself. A pragmatic mixed model is clearly best.

But the main point of the reforms in my view is twofold: I) brings in new funding that politics makes impossible, including by encouraging more people to go private if they choose, II) using a smallish co-pay to reduce wasteful demand on the system while also bringing in another small revenue stream.

It does work fairly well in many other countries. You don’t have to look only to the US model.

Ha ha. You’ve clearly not looked at the profit margins that some companies replacing NHS services are already making 😂. Or their offers.

How can it be free at point of use and follow the French model? That’s a contradiction the French model isn’t free.

The lobby group NHS For Sale publishes financial summaries of many of the main providers of hospital services to NHS.

Here are four big ones:

Spire Healthcare / £1,511m / £14.1m / 0.9%
Nuffield Health / £1,453m / -£36.4m / -2.5%
Circle Health / £1,205m / £24.9m / 2.1%
Ramsay UK / £689m / £8.5m / 1.2%

How much profit margin do you think is too much?

I don’t actually think the profit margin is the main thing to look at though. It’s “would the NHS run more or less effectively if it had to do this service in-house?”

Let’s say your Tesco profit margin was 20%. Would it be efficient for you to go to collect the food from all the suppliers yourself? Or still not?

Circle is bloody awful it was so bad in Nottingham they lost the contract. Countless cases of malpractice.

That’s a far more relevant consideration than profit margin. Though the NHS is capable of terrible care itself
too (as well as great care).

It makes no sense because the NHS is able to negotiate huge contracts with drugs companies. The NHS researchers some drugs and new techniques that the private sector won't do. The NHS provides emergency care something that the private sector does not.

The NHS is by far the most efficient way to deliver our healthcare.

Let Farage loose on healthcare and it will be an utter disaster as was Brexit and everything else he touches.

I will tell you one thing for sure that Reform in power will mean trouble across the country. Scotland will leave the union, trouble will return to Northern Ireland and you'll see strikes and riots up and down the country. You won't get cohesion from Reform you'll get division and trouble.

Why does the NHS outsource the development of drugs to pharma companies? Why does it buy paper instead of making it in-house? Why does it run its own A&E departments rather than outsource? Why do large hospitals have their own patient transport while small clinics call an Uber, etc etc.

The point being that these decisions don’t work well with a simplistic “in-house is best” or “outsourced is best” mindset.

Would you do all the above in-house always?

Or are you open to the idea that the NHS can take decisions on what its core competencies are and should be free to outsource where that best suits its needs?