Elections 6th May...

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That's a wonderful post, Alison...

You "don't have the energy" to read through my posts and yet you still say I'll never answer the challenges put to me. That is incredible, and somewhat typical of this whole subject area.

Someone spends a load of time writing up answers to the questions asked of them and you don't even bother to read them before writing off their whole argument out of hand.

Brilliant.

[zazen999]

Organic - I think Alison is well aware of what 'profit' is. Are any of the parties actually proposing these views? If not - they are a red herring - an awfully long winded and difficult to read red herring.

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Yes.
The UK Libertarian Party is proposing exactly that.

It's about to fight its first general election. I'm not holding my breath for any seats, but then most minority parties don't get much of a look in with the two-nag race it's usually painted as.

[di]

Any Party that said they'd do away with the NHS would lose my vote instantly!
Yes,it's lovely to think that we'd turn into this wonderful country where those in the position to would voluntarilary pop money in a big pot to ensure the poorer folk would get equally as good treatment when ill as they would....but come on!!!It's just not going to happen.
Lose the NHS and it wouldn't be long before it's a matter of those that can afford expensive treatment get it and those that can't either suffer without or go to poorly qualified,non registered 'Drs' that offer it at a price they can afford.
A friend in Turkey had a minor crash on his motorbike.He didn't have insurance so had to go to the 'poor peoples hospital'.I went to see him three days after his accident.He was still wearing the bloodstained shirt he had the accident in and his leg,although supposedly cleaned,looked less than good.At the time I was working as a receptionist for a Doc there so got him to go have a look at him.He took a jamjar full of glass from his leg...had it have been left my mate would most likely have lost his leg
OK,that may seem a long way off from happening over here but it worries me that losing the NHS would be the first step in that direction.

On the subject of NHS dentists...PLEASE don't assume that because you've had a bad experience that they're all bad.Mine's great(never thought I'd say that about a dentist)He has taken so much time chatting through various options with me,ensured I get maximum treatment for minimum payments by timing my appointments so they're within the three months of when I made a payment and even having a go at me for worrying about wasting his time with what see as minor problems.I've always been absolutely terrified of the dentist(to the point that up to three days before an appointment I'd be shaking and crying about it)I still don't particularly look forward to appointments but he's really helped me overcome my phobia and put me a little more at ease....all that from a crappy ole NHS dentist

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I don't think NHS dentists are bad. Some are, some aren't. I'm not arguing about good vs bad I'm arguing that private healthcare in a competitive market would do at least as good a job without the insanely high costs of the NHS.

"Any Party that said they'd do away with the NHS would lose my vote instantly!"
No consideration for the alternative system proposed, the transition period and how to deal with those already dependent on the system as it stands?
No consideration for the real possibility that the replacement system would provide a comprehensive service to all levels of society without the compulsion and waste inherent in nationalised healthcare?


As for Turkey... a bad comparisson.
Listen to some of the lectures and interviews with Sen. Ron Paul in the USA. He talks about his former post in a charity hospital of some sort. How they provided and excellent standard of care and never turned anyone away.

Liberty, choice, personal responsibility, charity, market forces, efficiency and standard of care. They are the relevant words and none of them point to a motorcyclist left with a jam-jar full of glass in his leg and being left in a blood-stained teeshirt after 3 days.

[di]

In ONE charity hospital in the whole of the USA?
Sorry my comparison is such a poor one...you really have such ideal hopes of British humanity that you think as a country we're so superior?
I'm sorry,maybe I should have more hope/faith in the charitable kind nature of our country....but I just don't and there ends my thoughts for the day.

[SarzWix]

You know, you can't FORCE people to subscribe to your point of view organic. You've put your argument across several times here, people don't agree with you. Repeating your argument ever more long-windedly isn't going to force people to agree! And since you keep telling everybody that a) you don't want to vote, and b) you don't want to be a politician (although I can't think why, I'm sure you'd fit right in ) then I can't see that this debate on the NHS needs to carry on.

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One last post.

I mentioned the UK Libertarian Party in response to Zazen. I am certainly not the most eloquent when it comes to explaining libertarian politics or philosophy - though I can give a few decent analogies... if anyone wants to get a better understanding of the basis of my argument in this thread without all the stress and distraction of the debate itself... I suggest you take a look at the party's website as they explain things really quite well.

The vast majority of people I know and speak to really haven't considered the issue of liberty at any great length... "we live in a free country" is about as far as it tends to go.

You might find that the views on this site are far more sensible and reasonable than they seem when presented in the heat of a debate about the one truly sacred cow in the UK's political climate, the NHS.

The Libertarian Party UK - LPUK Home

It's about time I left this discussion though - if anyone feels the need to raise any other points or continue with any of the issues so far, feel free to PM me and I'll take a few minutes to respond.

All the best folks, it's been nice that we can keep it generally civil for a political debate (which is usually more heated and irrational than the religion debate). Now - back to the gardening threads.

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Gah - guick response to those.

Andy&Di - yes, I have great faith in the charitable nature of the people of this country. We're a bloody generous lot, just a bit short of money thanks to government waste.


Sarz - debating at length isn't an attempt to force. I've been responding to the things people have said and asked - not just repeating a mantra. This debate has been a two way thing as much as you might like to think it's just me trying to force people.
How can anyone force anyone to change their mind? I'm not aware of a way and am certainly not dumb enough to try... but I will respond to questions asked of me and challenges made to my comments - exactly as I have been doing in this thread.
The posts become longer as the discussion becomes more complex.

And now I really am leaving the thread.

All the best.

[kirsty b]

we have outsourced hip ops in our trust, but when things go wrong and transfusions and high dependency beds etc are needed, where do they get that from, the NHS. when these patients have the op and are discharged most are refered back to the nhs for the aftercare such as physio. these company costs can be cheaper because they only provide a portion of the potential costs.

I'm with you there.

A patient can go private for an op, but if is major surgery, it will often be carried out in an NHS hospital, with convalescence in the private one. I have looked after Private and NHS patients alike.
Private nurses are NHS trained in the majority.

If somone has an op in a private hospital and they deteriorate, they will be transferred to the NHS because we have the ITU/HDU facilities that they may desperately need (as well as others such as labs, blood bank etc)

Someone who calls an ambulance in an emergency will be taken to and treated by the NHS regardless of whether they pay health insurance or not.

I do have criticisms of the NHS, one being that it is too complicated sometimes, it needs to be simplified and streamlined and the money better spent. It is not an overnight job/quick fix. In my dream world, I would like to see the NHS free from political meddling and agendas and run by experienced medical professionals, not number crunchers who have no clue about what constitutes good patient care. Patients DON'T CARE about targets, they just want to be cared for, have their right to privacy and dignity upheld, treated as a whole person not as a set of symptoms and to be respected by the people they are essentially trusting wth their lives.

Argue with me if you like, this is my opinion. It may differ from yours, but I'm big enough not to lose sleep over it.

I have worked in the NHS for the last 6 years, and I am proud to be part of it, whatever its detractors may say, and I plan to spend the rest of my working life within it.
I don't give a crap about numbers, costs, spin, private, non-private, whatever. Idealistic as it may sound, I find it a rewarding, challenging and fulfilling career.

Long live the NHS

[zazen999]

Aah, Libertines. Now we're talking...

YouTube - The Libertines - Campaign of hate

[Two_Sheds]

The point is that the NHS, ... will recieve whatever funding it needs

It doesn't though, it receives a budget from government, and has to work within that budget.
"Extras" are provided through fund-raising. You might know personally how hard it is to keep getting people to sponsor you for different things (cancer research, hospices, children's wards etc).... so-called compassion fatigue. Yet you think that people will voluntarily offer their money to run the entire NHS, instead of buying fags, booze & foreign holidays? No way.

Competition makes for cheaper and better service all round.

No, it doesn't. Just look at private care for the elderly (run by companies whose aim is profit and whose staff are often low-paid, unmotivated, short-term workers who can't get anything else), or the laughing stock that is our train system. The banks !

Oh, what else? Broadband suppliers: lots of competition, but the service isn't better or cheaper from one to the other.

In 2002 it was reported that calls to NHS Direct cost the taxpayer an average of �18. The average GP visit cost the taxpayer �14.

those are old figures. The 2009 figures aren't that good either though: The Telegraph reports that NHS Direct costs �25 a call, the same as a visit to the GP.

Perhaps all the people who go to the GP with a cold should have to pay for his/her time? While we're at it, fine those people who call an ambulance when they don't need one.

[OverWyreGrower]

I do have criticisms of the NHS, one being that it is too complicated sometimes, it needs to be simplified and streamlined and the money better spent. It is not an overnight job/quick fix. In my dream world, I would like to see the NHS free from political meddling and agendas and run by experienced medical professionals, not number crunchers who have no clue about what constitutes good patient care. Patients DON'T CARE about targets, they just want to be cared for, have their right to privacy and dignity upheld, treated as a whole person not as a set of symptoms and to be respected by the people they are essentially trusting wth their lives.

Agree.... in general, the NHS is brilliant, however lots of PCTs etc seem to be so tied up in beaurocracy and committees that they seem to be completely incompetent at getting stuff done (had first hand experience of waiting for funding for a treatment)

If the NHS was to be dissolved (which I doubt) we would be in for a world of pain (literally and figuratively speaking!)

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Against my better judgement, because I'm just about to start work and because your post was so well put together, TS... a quick response.

When I say whatever funding it needs I don't quite mean it's got a blank cheque - I mean there is not a cat in hell's chance it will ever have anything like a risk of failing like it would if it was on a competitive market.

No, I don't expect people to voluntarily fund the entire NHS. Nothing even close.
I expect everyone who can afford to do so to make their own provisions for their own healthcare. I expect those of a charitable slant (and I do believe we are a charitable nation, on the whole) to support groups which support those who can't provide for their own healthcare (distinct from those who won't or don't want to - and both are entitled both to that stance and to the consequences it brings about).

I believe compassion fatigue is at least as much down to available income as anything else. More available income means more generosity.


Our train system is still run on a monopoly basis. Again, try getting a non-Virgin train direct from Manchester to London and you'll see how much competition exists in that market.

The banks are not on a competitive, free market. They failed and were given a pile of money to start over. That's not capitalism, that's not liberal and that's not anything like being exposed to the market. With a genuine risk of failure the banks would have been more cautious... especially if the top dogs knew they'd be help personally accountable for money squandered the way it was.

Some for-profit private healthcare is bad, some is great. Ditto with the NHS. The fact remains, though, that the current system is still heavily state-depndent and so is not truly exposed to market forces.

Broadband is rubbis and expensive because it is still a state-based system. Prices vary because there's a state backed monopoly on the infrastructure which means it is not exposed to competition. There's nothing to bring that cost down so the broadband costs stay high. There's no investment in the new technologies because the companies who will profit from it want US to foot the bill (via government funding) - because the lawmakers let them get away with selling Unlimited* packages (* always means "this is a complete lie") and so on. If the broadband market was free and the government stayed hands-off beyond enforcing fair and honest advertising things would change for the better.

Again, look to UK-Ireland flight routes to see what happens when an industry is exposed to the market and just one company who wants to bring prices down.


As for costs of NHS direct - "still not good", no. Still doesn't change the fact it's increased pressure on A&E or GPs either.

People paying for their GP visits and for calling an ambulance when it's not needed... see - cmmon ground. I agree completely.

How many people would keep going to the GP for antibiotics for colds and flu if they were charged �20 per visit and sent packing empty handed every time?

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Hell we could even turn the NHS into a "health-insurer-of-last-resort" - providing cover only for those (means tested) who can't provide for their own care (low income but hard working, disabled, elderly, orphaned etc).

The hospitals and treatment could still be on a totally free-market basis with all the benefits and cost reductions brought about by competition, those who could afford to do so would provide their own care and those who absolutely can not provide for themselves (and not because they just bought a big-screen TV instead of health cover) would be propped up.

Even though that requires taxation and so there's no charitable element - it would still massively reduce the cost of healthcare in general.