interestrateripoff Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/14/david-cameron-adviser-health-reform A senior adviser to David Cameron says the NHS could be improved by charging patients and will be transformed into a "state insurance provider, not a state deliverer" of care.Mark Britnell, who was appointed to a "kitchen cabinet" advising the prime minister on reforming the NHS, told a conference of executives from the private sector that future reforms would show "no mercy" to the NHS and offer a "big opportunity" to the for-profit sector. The revelations come on the eve of a major speech by the prime minister on the future of the NHS, during which he is expected to try to damp down widespread fears that the reforms proposed in health secretary Andrew Lansley's health and social care bill will lead to privatisation of the service. It has been suggested that Cameron may even announce the extension of a pause in the progress of the bill through parliament until after the party conference season, amid growing tensions on the issue within the ranks of the coalition government. The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, has insisted that the Liberal Democrats will not support any reforms that allow the "profit motive to drive a coach and horses through the NHS". Perhaps we can follow the excellent US model where hospitals bankrupt patients? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJAR Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 Perhaps we can follow the excellent US model where hospitals bankrupt patients? or we could follow the excellent dutch insurance model - that works better than our NHS and the US system. Or bring in something of the singaporean system - which has a safety net coupled with personal health savings accounts. or like the care they have in the cook islands (if you are in hospital as the result of alcohol - you pay room and board) FFS there are more options in health care than the f*ck-up that is the USA and the NHS. Use some imagination! (and maybe do some research ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
200p Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 (edited) How about people who know the secret handshake, or can wink, or who can stuff envelopes with gifts, are given preferential choice to the lucrative contracts so they are set up for life? Edited May 14, 2011 by Money Spinner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
200p Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 As Angus Deayton would say "No change there, then!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miko Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 or we could follow the excellent dutch insurance model - that works better than our NHS and the US system. Or bring in something of the singaporean system - which has a safety net coupled with personal health savings accounts. or like the care they have in the cook islands (if you are in hospital as the result of alcohol - you pay room and board) FFS there are more options in health care than the f*ck-up that is the USA and the NHS. Use some imagination! (and maybe do some research ) There are many choices of model we could have . What are the odds that if call me Dave does change the current system out of all the good models out there we will end up with the bad one like the US . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libspero Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 A senior adviser to David Cameron says the NHS could be improved by charging patients and will be transformed into a "state insurance provider, not a state deliverer" of care. Bit hard to comment until they actually publish some details. It's not as if it's free in the first place anyway.. we all pay 25% extra tax to fund it. I think the best model they could choose would be one where they keep spending firmly under control (not bowing to public pressure to fund ever more expensive designer drugs etc), while still drawing the main funding from taxation. That said, there could be a benefit from creating a small point of use charge as it would discourage people from having treatment unnecessarily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awaytogo Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/14/david-cameron-adviser-health-reform Perhaps we can follow the excellent US model where hospitals bankrupt patients? Thats if they can get into the hospital to start with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awaytogo Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 Bit hard to comment until they actually publish some details. It's not as if it's free in the first place anyway.. we all pay 25% extra tax to fund it. I think the best model they could choose would be one where they keep spending firmly under control (not bowing to public pressure to fund ever more expensive designer drugs etc), while still drawing the main funding from taxation. That said, there could be a benefit from creating a small point of use charge as it would discourage people from having treatment unnecessarily. If you read up stories about the American system it creates unnecessary operations, and there are many claims in for unnecessary oparations which have been done purely to claim more from insurance companies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libspero Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 If you read up stories about the American system it creates unnecessary operations, and there are many claims in for unnecessary oparations which have been done purely to claim more from insurance companies. I apologise if I was not clear.. I was not suggesting any system involving private insurance companies. Simply that if people had to pay a fraction (say 1/20th) of the cost themselves up front, it might reduce any unnecessary treatment while still leaving the lions share of the burden to fall on the tax payer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Craw Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 if people had to pay a fraction (say 1/20th) of the cost themselves up front ....we'd need a vast new bureaucracy to administer exemptions (read: to ensure only those actually contributing tax/NI had to pay this extra charge) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfp123 Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 (edited) the things about the NHS is that it isnt the best in the world, but as marker you would give it an 8 out of 10. its ranked 18th best healthcare system in the world, but as a cost is is cheaper than almost all industrialised nations. therefore the NHS is arguably the most cost effective and efficient healthcare system in the world. its not the best, but it doesnt proclaim to be the best, but it is the most cost effective system by far. if you cite for example, france, germany, italy, netherlands - they have better healthcares systems, but it costs more. much more. to put the NHS on par we would need to add roughly 20%-30% more spending on the NHS in terms of a cost comparison - only then can you say how effective it is compared to other countries. a bmw maybe a better car than a ford mondeo , but it costs more too so you cant directly compare them. Edited May 15, 2011 by mfp123 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
libspero Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 ....we'd need a vast new bureaucracy to administer You're probably right.. it was a rubbish idea. I would settle for TPTB just keeping a lid on costs.. I don't think the NHS should be a bottomless pit like it has been over the past 10 years or so (8% annual increases in cost). It would be nice if it was just a basic service offering good, fast treatments with minimum bureaucracy. If you want exotic/expensive treatments people should be welcome to take out private medical insurance to cover the cost. Overall I don't think the NHS is a bad system.. it just needs reigning in a bit. At the end of the day it's a public healthcare system, for the people, paid by the people. We just have to remember that not all people are millionaires and the budget should reflect that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zilly Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 The £ fell against the Euro by about 33%. The NHS used to be a lot more cost effective until the bungle brothers Brown and Blair decided that we needed to bring our spending up to the level of the average in Europe...and just increased wages with disastrous contract negotiations. Actually we had a perfectly well functioning NHS until the great neoliberal experiment started at the end of the 80s under the Tories. It was at this point that the bright idea of opening up the NHS to the forces of free-market competition was implemented. Then the reams of management consultants, with their constant re-disorganisations (specifically designed not to improve efficiency but to secure future revenue streams for themselves), moved in and everything started to go belly up. We wouldn't have a c-diff or MRSA problem if the cleaning hadn't been privatised and then slimmed down for extra profits, for instance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LJAR Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 There are many choices of model we could have . What are the odds that if call me Dave does change the current system out of all the good models out there we will end up with the bad one like the US . now that I would believe! might convince my other half to leave britain if that happened! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
interestrateripoff Posted May 15, 2011 Author Share Posted May 15, 2011 The £ fell against the Euro by about 33%. The NHS used to be a lot more cost effective until the bungle brothers Brown and Blair decided that we needed to bring our spending up to the level of the average in Europe...and just increased wages with disastrous contract negotiations. It was worse than that, a lot of our European counterparts who the bungle brothers decided to match in spending include old age care ie care homes in with their health care costs, so we increased spending against countries who don't actually spend that on health care. Genius. Still haven't found that paper yet which said the NHS was ill equipped to spend the money and stated it would just be wasted on increased wages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R K Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Actually we had a perfectly well functioning NHS until the great neoliberal experiment started at the end of the 80s under the Tories. It was at this point that the bright idea of opening up the NHS to the forces of free-market competition was implemented. Then the reams of management consultants, with their constant re-disorganisations (specifically designed not to improve efficiency but to secure future revenue streams for themselves), moved in and everything started to go belly up. We wouldn't have a c-diff or MRSA problem if the cleaning hadn't been privatised and then slimmed down for extra profits, for instance. Thatch did something similar with the banks, and the energy cos. and the bus services. Almost everything they touched has now fallen apart or needs excessive regulation to prevent gouging and that mostly fails. It's cheaper to run a car privately than catch a bus, we all know what happened to the banks, Merv has warned again of the energy cos price ramping and to cap it all she spunked all the oil up the wall on current expenditure. Property did well though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riedquat Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 The NHS used to be a lot more cost effective until the bungle brothers Brown and Blair decided that we needed to bring our spending up to the level of the average in Europe...and just increased wages with disastrous contract negotiations. Agreed. Reform should start by not so much reforming as moving back by undoing a lot of the mess made by Labour. I am thoroughly against any suggestion of privatising healthcare; an available-to-all without having to worry about any personal financial impact health system is, IMO, about as basic a must for a country that can afford it as providing a service to put your house out if it catches fire. The only exceptions are lifestyle-induced illness, but even there I feel that it's only right to have at least a "We'll help you if you help yourself" approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockhopper Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 I'll post the link I provided in a thread a couple of weeks ago , the piece was titled "The Plot Against the NHS" and is a lecture given on 11 april 2011 . it explains how the privatisation of the nhs is to be achieved , and how it started under NewLabour with Alan Milburn. It also explains why the consultants and the GPs contracts were renegotiated in ~2003 and why they got such big pay rises ... anyway ... read and weep http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/colin-leys/plot-against-nhs cheers, rockhopper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shipbuilder Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 I'll post the link I provided in a thread a couple of weeks ago , the piece was titled "The Plot Against the NHS" and is a lecture given on 11 april 2011 . it explains how the privatisation of the nhs is to be achieved , and how it started under NewLabour with Alan Milburn. It also explains why the consultants and the GPs contracts were renegotiated in ~2003 and why they got such big pay rises ... anyway ... read and weep http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/colin-leys/plot-against-nhs cheers, rockhopper Thanks very much for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Democorruptcy Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 The way things are going the poor can look forward to providing body parts for the rich. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockrobin Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Thatch did something similar with the banks, and the energy cos. and the bus services. Almost everything they touched has now fallen apart or needs excessive regulation to prevent gouging and that mostly fails. It's cheaper to run a car privately than catch a bus, we all know what happened to the banks, Merv has warned again of the energy cos price ramping and to cap it all she spunked all the oil up the wall on current expenditure. Property did well though. I think you'll find there was more banking regulation under Thatcher. It was Gordon's medling that totally screwed it and he's admitted it!! Have you got any evidence that proves that the public services the Tories privatised in the past were so amazingly efficient and cost effective before??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockrobin Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 The way things are going the poor can look forward to providing body parts for the rich. A few years of pain is all that we will have to endure after 13 years of filthy Labour greed!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockrobin Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 The way things are going the poor can look forward to providing body parts for the rich. Labour's gone, things can only get better!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onesmallstep Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 I think you'll find there was more banking regulation under Thatcher. It was Gordon's medling that totally screwed it and he's admitted it!! Have you got any evidence that proves that the public services the Tories privatised in the past were so amazingly efficient and cost effective before??? you seriously think the torys were ever for more regulation that's a new way of viewing things anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miko Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 I think you'll find there was more banking regulation under Thatcher. It was Gordon's medling that totally screwed it and he's admitted it!! Have you got any evidence that proves that the public services the Tories privatised in the past were so amazingly efficient and cost effective before??? If you can be bothered to wipe the sh*t out of your blinkerd eyes you will find that right up untill NR fked up call me Dave was shouting for less regulation in the banking sector . But then if you did do that it would not fit in with your everything is labours fault would it. As for public services which ones are you talking about services as in NHS , Councils or companies that got sold off like our birthright Water plus BT , British Gas ect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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