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Axe falls on NHS services
Comments
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Maybe they've read the survival rates in our two countries?
Only if you can afford insurance in america or have a job (that gives you medical cover). Any figures given by the americans, will not include the survival rate of those that couldn't get medical insurance. The survival rate of the poor in america that need medical help, is not high
I read on the american lists, that they have been stopped from putting their debts for medical bills, into bankruptcy.RENTING? Have you checked to see that your landlord has permission from their mortgage lender to rent the property? If not, you could be thrown out with very little notice.
Read the sticky on the House Buying, Renting & Selling board.0 -
Tories will never get my vote again0
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Tories will never get my vote again
How narrow minded is that?
Why not look back over the statistics and see that NHS spending has increased by over 40% in the last 10 years. The NHS is the largest employer in Western Europe.
I shudder to think of how much wastage there is, indeed if the NHS was efficient in its operations I suspect there wouldn't be a need for cuts at all.
All Gordon did was write a blank cheque and forget about the concept of value for money.0 -
The thing I always noticed most about the NHS is how horrible it is to use.
The staff regularly treat patients as an irritation, the buildings are often dirty, dilapidated and old. You hang around for hours only to be told that you need to go on yet another waiting list, appointments seem to be on a 'take it or leave it' basis.
Having been to hospitals in Germany (as a visitor), France (patient and visitor) and Australia (patient and visitor) it seems it needn't be that way, yet (British) politicians will have you believe the NHS is the envy of the world!
I think, like a lot of public services in the UK, it is a postcode lottery as to how decent your local services are.
However I reckon the staff are generally pretty good, despite what they have to put up with (I have a friend who is a junior doctor), but the management are poor and the buildings sorely lacking in investment.
Saying that, a public healthcare system should be a priority for all developed nations, and I'm astounded that the US still doesn't have one.0 -
The thing I always noticed most about the NHS is how horrible it is to use.
The staff regularly treat patients as an irritation, the buildings are often dirty, dilapidated and old. You hang around for hours only to be told that you need to go on yet another waiting list, appointments seem to be on a 'take it or leave it' basis.
Having been to hospitals in Germany (as a visitor), France (patient and visitor) and Australia (patient and visitor) it seems it needn't be that way, yet (British) politicians will have you believe the NHS is the envy of the world!
I don't think I've had that experience of the NHS.
My mother had a hip-operation with the same specialist who'd done the Queen Mother's hip operations! - how's that for a truly democratic service!0 -
princeofpounds wrote: »True, there are lots of ways. For example, a common model in Europe is to have totally private provision of services based on insurance, but for that insurance cost to be partially (or completely if you are poor) covered by a government subsidy. So you have universal social healthcare but you don't have a state-owned enterprise providing it.
The NHS generally speaking gives fairly good outcomes and is fairly expensive, but it's not bad value relative to other countries' healthcare systems if you look at it from the point of view of healthcare spend relative to GDP (which seems to indicate that spend is not the most important factor in terms of longevity - probably genetics, lifestyle and diet matter a lot more than all the medical care).
There appears to be something endemic about waste and ineffciency in all healthcare systems. I guess it's because the treatments are complex and different, and there is a high information asymmetry (meaning doctors can rip people off like car mechanics do), there is a low political willingness to tackle hard decision on resources, demand is always growing as new treatments proliferate and so on...
What would worry me about private provision is that at the end of the day private companies take this on in order to make cold, hard profits - not out of the goodness of their hearts or because they care about patient care.
So as well as paying for the treatment, you also have to factor in the cost of huge profits for shareholders and huge salaries for company directors, etc.
I've worked in private sechools and sent my children to private nurseries, and been shocked at how the profit motive predominates in a way it just doesn't and can't in the public sector.
Frankly, I find it impossible to think of a single public service that was nationalised under the Tories and now provides a better, cheaper service for consumers.0 -
I don't think I've had that experience of the NHS.
My mother had a hip-operation with the same specialist who'd done the Queen Mother's hip operations! - how's that for a truly democratic service!
It has consistently been my experience of the NHS (with exceptions) from Home Counties villages to some of the grottier bits of Central London. It has been so widespread that I can only assume that you have very low expectations.
Who gives a flying fox about democracy from a health system. I want to get well not exercise my freedom of assembly.0 -
How narrow minded is that?
Why not look back over the statistics and see that NHS spending has increased by over 40% in the last 10 years. The NHS is the largest employer in Western Europe.
I shudder to think of how much wastage there is, indeed if the NHS was efficient in its operations I suspect there wouldn't be a need for cuts at all.
All Gordon did was write a blank cheque and forget about the concept of value for money.
We should all be proud of the NHS !, healthcare for all by committed staff, tamper with the NHS and the tories will be out of power for years to come.0 -
How narrow minded is that?
Why not look back over the statistics and see that NHS spending has increased by over 40% in the last 10 years. The NHS is the largest employer in Western Europe.
I shudder to think of how much wastage there is, indeed if the NHS was efficient in its operations I suspect there wouldn't be a need for cuts at all.
All Gordon did was write a blank cheque and forget about the concept of value for money.
The problem is that Labour started out with an ambition to increase spending as a % of GDP to average European levels.
The majority of this increase simply went on increased pay (although there are extra Doctors, Nurses and managers).0 -
It has consistently been my experience of the NHS (with exceptions) from Home Counties villages to some of the grottier bits of Central London. It has been so widespread that I can only assume that you have very low expectations.
Who gives a flying fox about democracy from a health system. I want to get well not exercise my freedom of assembly.
Or maybe my experience has been different to yours?
It depends what you mean by 'low expectations', I suppose. I want a health service which gives overall good results in health terms - I agree the paint is probably peeling off the walls a bit, and when in hospital giving birth to my first 2, I had to share cramped wards with loads of other mothers and their screaming infants.
BUT I would much prefer that to a system where I got the best of everything - but only if I could afford to pay.
My brother lives in the US. He and his wife have reasonable earnings, and she has had to stay in her public sector job purely because it pays the health insurance (he's self-employed so gets no help with it).
If she didn't, IIRC, their monthly spend on healthcare would be equivalent to my rent! :eek: That's a hell of a lot of money to spend on something that is free over here.
And it's not as though the healthcare they receive is in any noticeable way superior to that here.
My point about the Queen Mother's surgeon wasn't that it was democratic in some abstract political sense, which I agree would be meaningless; the point I was making - which you deliberately chose to misinterpet - was that in the UK even the poorest can access top-notch treatment for free.0
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