There is nothing special about the nhs

Mistermeaner

Lots of other countries have different systems

Lots of other countries have better outcomes at lower cost

The nhs does not needing 'saving' or 'protecting'

It needs modernising to be fit for purpose and affordable on a sustainable cost reduction path that gradually reduces its responsibility and public expectations thereof such that the total cost reduces year on year in real terms

Discuss

SweetPotatoPie

Better outcomes at a lower cost? Speak to any American who can’t afford healthcare. Speak to families who are in debt for the rest of their lives due to losing a family member. I think we are very lucky to have the NHS.

melanzana

SweetPotatoPie wrote: »

Better outcomes at a lower cost? Speak to any American who can’t afford healthcare. Speak to families who are in debt for the rest of their lives due to losing a family member. I think we are very lucky to have the NHS.

We have NHS for now though. That is the reality, the vultures are circling re Brexit and Trade Deals with the US.

I understand and know about the US system. But it might come our way you know!

What about France? Brilliant system, no waits for GPS or in A+E and a pharmacy on every corner. You know, the Green Cross with the day, time and temperature. Even in the backwoods.

You never really hear of an EU country with totally bad Health Services that impoverish those who need it. Do we? Think about that.

Arklight

It would be better to move a successful "socialised" medical provision, like they have in Europe. Usually your insurance is provided by the state and the care is private. You can't be uninsured or priced out of care. You can choose your physician.

But this isn't what the Tories, and it's only the Tories that will privatise the NHS, want. They want a US system of unaffordable, profit driven treatment, that rinses people of their cash when they're at their most vulnerable and introduces medical apartheid between the rich and not so rich.

Note, as most people who've been unlucky enough to be ill in America can attest. There is a lot of medical treatment available there. There is very little medical care.

Mistermeaner

SweetPotatoPie wrote: »

Better outcomes at a lower cost? Speak to any American who can’t afford healthcare. Speak to families who are in debt for the rest of their lives due to losing a family member. I think we are very lucky to have the NHS.

Speak to anyone in UK who is paying thousands in tax to fund something they don’t need due to life style choices / good luck

Be lovely to have the everyone to have first class health care on tap

But someone has to pay for it

Mistermeaner

Just a thought ; what about a ‘lifetime allowance’ on healthcare for an individual?

Or some form of age cap?

Anyone have any ideas on affordability? Other than “tax the corporations/rich” (which does not work)

Doozergirl

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Speak to anyone in UK who is paying thousands in tax to fund something they don’t need due to life style choices / good luck

Good luck is all it is. Any of us could fall in the next minute and need hugely expensive care. Care that could last a lifetime.

You're going to pay for healthcare in any system. It's just how.

badgerhead

Tax on unhealthy food which subsidises healthy living food/lifestyles. This might reduce burden. But I'm unsure of the ratio of inpatients that have diseases or illness through lifestyle to other types. But then if we banned smoking how much revenue would be lost.

If you went down the road of private health insurance, do you pay more if you live in a city with high air pollution or more crime? Thats generally where the poorest live though. I'd always argue against private insurance unless the governement made it compulsary. This is beacuse i think of like a struggling family knowing that they can pay the £100 health insurance this month or pay the rent they have been at wits to find. It worries me.

How many of us would have survived our childhood without the NHS? I think i quite like it the way it is. Some people pay more, but the social benfit outweighs the cost. Is the "crisis" due to lack of investment? Probably, but is'nt our non-working population increasing causing a knock on effect. This argument will sound the same in a few years when we have to pay more tax to fund carbon capture technology. Some people will say they always cycle everywhere etc

tacpot12

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Speak to anyone in UK who is paying thousands in tax to fund something they don’t need due to life style choices / good luck

Be lovely to have the everyone to have first class health care on tap

But someone has to pay for it

I read an early retirement blog called Early Retirement Now. It is written by an American and has mostly American comments. A recent retiree (60 years old and healthy) commented that he has to paying $800 per month (£500 per month) for health insurance. I've never paid that much per month in NI contributions, and neither will 99% of the UK population. I think the NHS offers great value for money.

It is very efficient for a large organisation. It doesn't need transforming. What it does need is government to stop trying to transform it because their buddies in business want more opportunities to siphon off public cash. The NHS has shown itself to be capable of incremental change and improvement.

The Conservative government's attempts to transform the service spent billions on consultants and initiatives, but ended up delivering poorer outcomes because the people pushing the change didn't understand the problems - they had a view that was too heavily clouded by political doctrine that the NHS is bad and must be destroyed.

There are three initiatives that have caused the NHS immense problems:

• the reorganisation of junior doctors training was managed so poorly that large numbers of junior doctor left the profession to go overseas
• reorganising the pension system created a massive incentive for senior hospital doctors to leave the profession at 55 because staying longer reduced their income substantially, for miniscule improvements in their final pension
• changing the GP contract made the senior GPs so rich that they could afford to stop working at 55, so that's what they did. The ones that are left are drowning under the demands of training the GPs needed to take their place when they retire and patient demands because there are fewer doctors entering general practice because few want to be a doctor and a business manager.

Politically motivated meddling in the service has to stop, for all our sakes.

Arklight

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Speak to anyone in UK who is paying thousands in tax to fund something they don’t need due to life style choices / good luck

Be lovely to have the everyone to have first class health care on tap

But someone has to pay for it

As a country we long ago had a conversation about whether we were willing to fund other people's medical care. Partly as an insurance policy for ourselves, and partly because acting with compassion towards others is the right thing to do. That is also how the ideal of the welfare state came into being.

Despite decades of corrosive right wing selfishness shoved at people's noses through every media outlet, polls suggest that at heart most British people still believe in this ideal.

There is nothing in your posting history that suggests you ever have, or even can, understand why others might think like this. All I can say to you is that it's not the taxes that you think you are owed that is what is missing from you.

Herzlos

I definitely agree we can streamline the NHS somewhat and provide a better service, but a US style private medical private insurance system is not it. Someone needs to pay for all that extra overhead and profit.

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Speak to anyone in UK who is paying thousands in tax to fund something they don’t need due to life style choices / good luck

The only people paying into the NHS who won't use it are those with private medical cover, and potentially those that will live a perfectly healthy life without having any kids and then die suddenly.
For everyone else who gets old, ill or has accidents, they'll make use of it.