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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Who will lead us now?
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
ISTM that Johnson likes to be liked. He now has a job dealing with people who have every reason to cordially despise him.
He'll find that out as soon as he attends Cabinet.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jeremy Hunt is staying at the Department of Health.
It is 2057. Skynet has won and the Terminators scour a post-apocalyptic landscape hunting down the last survivors. In a cave, somewhere in Wales, Jeremy Hunt and the last surviving representative of the BMA are arguing about junior doctors contracts.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
SusanDoris.
Governments can hold up a piece of paper and say 'This is worth a billion quid, well it will be when you've all lent us someone else's money and we'll tax everyone but you to pay you a higher interest rate than you charge them to finance stuff they can't afford to buy outright while working in the schools and hospitals we build from the billion or working in other borrowers businesses.'.
Win, win, win, win. No?
Er...er...um...I have to confess I'm not quite sure about all that - and I slowed the speed of the voice down too! ![[Confused]](confused.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Still, on the plus side, good to see a remainer getting the gig.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
alienfromzog
Thank you for your post and for the link to an expert view. I suppose it's that I personally have always hated to owe money, but international finances don't work thatway, do they.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Joesaphat:
Johnson, Davis and Fox at the helm of every position dealing with foreign countries; I cannot tell whether Theresa May has a great sense of humour and will sack them in a few months or whether this is an actual calamity.
I think its quite smart. They now have to follow through on the rhetoric they have been spouting for the last few months.
Davis maintained that the EU would come to the UK begging for a deal if we held out firmly over migration, so he is being given the chance to test what I suspect was a piece of wishful thinking on his part.
If they all foul up (and I think in Boris's case it will be a matter of weeks ) May can defend appointing 'Leavers' in the Cabinet to follow through the Brexit mandate , and then sorrowfully sack them as they weren't up to the job. She will then declare that there is no further reason to appoint another set of Leavers having fluffed their opportunity (or demonstrated that the 'Have it all' Leaver package is unachievable even if done by people who really wanted it to work).
Which I think is the cunning plan.
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
Posts: 297 | From: Whitley Bay | Registered: Feb 2012
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jeremy Hunt is staying at the Department of Health.
This was nearly a foregone conclusion. It merely emphasises the lie that they ever intended to slow down the destruction of the NHS.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I wait two weeks now to see a GP. Forward to a modern Conservative Britain! (Unless you're ill or poor).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
I think its quite smart. They now have to follow through on the rhetoric they have been spouting for the last few months.
Davis maintained that the EU would come to the UK begging for a deal if we held out firmly over migration, so he is being given the chance to test what I suspect was a piece of wishful thinking on his part.
His conservativehome post is an exercise in wishful thinking and general posturing.
I have to interject on the idea that this is a clever plan though. What if it isn't? So far most of the front bench have proved to be fairly mediocre - what if May's Machiavellian reputation purely stems from the fact that she's generally kept her mouth shut?
I mean her record at the home office isn't exactly glowing.
Either way I'll be taking bets on which of Davis, Johnson, or Fox resign first.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
I think its quite smart. They now have to follow through on the rhetoric they have been spouting for the last few months.
Davis maintained that the EU would come to the UK begging for a deal if we held out firmly over migration, so he is being given the chance to test what I suspect was a piece of wishful thinking on his part.
His conservativehome post is an exercise in wishful thinking and general posturing.
I have to interject on the idea that this is a clever plan though. What if it isn't? So far most of the front bench have proved to be fairly mediocre - what if May's Machiavellian reputation purely stems from the fact that she's generally kept her mouth shut?
I mean her record at the home office isn't exactly glowing.
Either way I'll be taking bets on which of Davis, Johnson, or Fox resign first.
I concluded much the same about DD's piece. We shall see.
Though to be honest, I'm not sure there is much else Theresa May could have done bar putting the Brexiteers up front on their pet issue. If (when) failure comes, they do have to be in the front line.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jeremy Hunt is staying at the Department of Health.
This was nearly a foregone conclusion. It merely emphasises the lie that they ever intended to slow down the destruction of the NHS.
70 years on and the NHS still hasn't been destroyed...
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
I think if May has a plan it is something like: Let the Three Stooges negotiate Brexit, then when it all goes tits-up, as it most assuredly will, Leave voters won't be able to cry foul. That might be a cue for a second referendum with the choice based on known facts rather than fairy tales and matey banter.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jeremy Hunt is staying at the Department of Health.
This was nearly a foregone conclusion. It merely emphasises the lie that they ever intended to slow down the destruction of the NHS.
70 years on and the NHS still hasn't been destroyed...
I think it's being squeezed, so that anybody with money will go private. I can't afford that, so have to wait 2 weeks to see a GP. Before Cameron came in, I used to get a next day appointment. I saw an old lady come into the surgery last week, who said she was poorly, and they said, sorry, we can't see you for 2 weeks, so off to A and E, several miles away. Thanks Dave and George.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jeremy Hunt is staying at the Department of Health.
This was nearly a foregone conclusion. It merely emphasises the lie that they ever intended to slow down the destruction of the NHS.
70 years on and the NHS still hasn't been destroyed...
As stupid comment go, that might not take top prize, but it is on the podium.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Yes, I know it is received wisdom in some quarters that "the tories" hold as an article of faith the destruction of the NHS but that is ducking the issue.
The expectation that the NHS can keep on offering cradle-to-grave care for all, medical services from GPs and health visitors to critical care, all surgical procedures from open-heart surgery to repair of botched cosmetic procedures, plus fertility treatment, free contraception, etc, etc, etc is not only naive, it is fundamentally dishonest since anyone with a modicum of intellegence must realise that what the "hands off 'our' NHS" attitude implies is that all governments must, effectively, give a blank cheque to the NHS, regardless of any other items which the country may need.
I too have benefited from the NHS in my time, but I recognise that the combination of an increasing population, a much larger population of very elderly, a massive increase in chronic conditions caused by obesity and, not least, the huge increase in treatments and drugs available (at a cost) for most conditions, we are bound to - may already have - reach a situation where the demands cannot be paid for.
Some might say it is already too late to instigate rational debate about setting affordable and sensible proposals for what the NHS covers, or how a dedicated mandatory health insurance might be introduced, but it has to be done. Simply repeating the mantra that "our" NHS must be preserved is not the answer, nor is demonising public servants and politicians who are trying to achieve the impossible by running it.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I wait two weeks now to see a GP. Forward to a modern Conservative Britain! (Unless you're ill or poor).
In my local surgery, there is always a doctor assigned to seeurgent cases, so, as happened several months ago, I phoned early and was given an appointment that afternoon. (As it turned out to be a TIA I spent the next 24 hours in hospital!)
Do you have that sort of system where you are?
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I wait two weeks now to see a GP. Forward to a modern Conservative Britain! (Unless you're ill or poor).
In my local surgery, there is always a doctor assigned to seeurgent cases, so, as happened several months ago, I phoned early and was given an appointment that afternoon. (As it turned out to be a TIA I spent the next 24 hours in hospital!)
Do you have that sort of system where you are?
Yes, it must be a very badly-run surgery which says "you can't see a doctor for 2 weeks under any circumstances". At my local surgery the medical staff and the much-maligned administrators perform prodigies of service and organisation. On the 2 occasions when I have needed to in recent years, I have been able to see a doctor that day.
I agree that there is a national debate to be had on how much we can reasonably continue to expect from the NHS, but it will be impossible to have that debate while people continue to expect that everything they want or need will be provided instantly for free, and while politicians continue to stoke that belief to get easy votes.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
At our local GPs', they telephone-triage you and, depending on how serious your symptoms sound, they either see you that day or a few days later. Not exactly perfect, but it largely works IME.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Though to be honest, I'm not sure there is much else Theresa May could have done bar putting the Brexiteers up front on their pet issue. If (when) failure comes, they do have to be in the front line.
So she's grouped up a prima-donna and two serial liars, one of whom has no ministerial experience to sort out an issue of national important so that when they screw up she has plausible deniability. That is the most charitable explanation.
Apart from anything else, there is a high likelihood of some other foreign crisis kicking off that needs someone with real diplomacy skills, not a self-centred buffoon with an elephant sized vocabulary who only opens his mouth to change feet.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Humble Servant
Shipmate
# 18391
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I recognise that the combination of an increasing population, a much larger population of very elderly, a massive increase in chronic conditions caused by obesity and, not least, the huge increase in treatments and drugs available (at a cost) for most conditions, we are bound to - may already have - reach a situation where the demands cannot be paid for.
Particularly given the constraint of a political ideology that wants the state to spend no more than 35% of GDP.
In effect, we no longer have much of a "National" health service. We mainly have a private health service paid for by the state. So withdrawal of the cash and replacement with top-ups will not be too difficult a trick for our Jeremy to pull off in the rest of this government's term.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Apr 2015
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Though to be honest, I'm not sure there is much else Theresa May could have done bar putting the Brexiteers up front on their pet issue. If (when) failure comes, they do have to be in the front line.
So she's grouped up a prima-donna and two serial liars, one of whom has no ministerial experience to sort out an issue of national important so that when they screw up she has plausible deniability. That is the most charitable explanation.
Apart from anything else, there is a high likelihood of some other foreign crisis kicking off that needs someone with real diplomacy skills, not a self-centred buffoon with an elephant sized vocabulary who only opens his mouth to change feet.
That's pretty much it, yes.
Look on the bright side - things can't get any worse. Can they?
<sarcasm smiley>
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
Unfortunately there is potential for things to get much worse. We are off the maps here, and no-one really knows which direction is safe, and which leads off the edge of the world.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Chris Stiles:
quote:
Apart from anything else, there is a high likelihood of some other foreign crisis kicking off that needs someone with real diplomacy skills, not a self-centred buffoon with an elephant sized vocabulary who only opens his mouth to change feet.
I'm guessing that the real power in foreign policy is going to be Mrs May and that the job of the Foreign Secretary will be to manage the FCO and schmooze diplomats at receptions. Rather like the role of Mrst Beckett under Mr Blair, but more so. The FCO has, in effect, been partitioned with international trade and Brexit under separate ministers, which makes the Great Office of State bit a historical fact rather than a living reality. The main justification for having Boris in post is that when Foreign Office questions come up he can stand at the dispatch box and explain that, actually, that stuff about the moon on a stick turned out not to be true. Bit hard on the civil servants who will doubtless glance up at the portraits of Palmerston, Bevin and Eden and mutter: "Makes me sick, motherfucker, how far we done fell", but desperate times and all that jazz.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I wait two weeks now to see a GP. Forward to a modern Conservative Britain! (Unless you're ill or poor).
In my local surgery, there is always a doctor assigned to seeurgent cases, so, as happened several months ago, I phoned early and was given an appointment that afternoon. (As it turned out to be a TIA I spent the next 24 hours in hospital!)
Do you have that sort of system where you are?
Yes, it must be a very badly-run surgery which says "you can't see a doctor for 2 weeks under any circumstances". At my local surgery the medical staff and the much-maligned administrators perform prodigies of service and organisation. On the 2 occasions when I have needed to in recent years, I have been able to see a doctor that day.
I agree that there is a national debate to be had on how much we can reasonably continue to expect from the NHS, but it will be impossible to have that debate while people continue to expect that everything they want or need will be provided instantly for free, and while politicians continue to stoke that belief to get easy votes.
Well, lucky you. Surveys seem to show that waiting times have been increasing, and two weeks is expected to become the norm. But the Tories favour private health, and are going to starve such services of money.
http://tinyurl.com/hcsfne6
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
alienfromzog
Thank you for your post and for the link to an expert view. I suppose it's that I personally have always hated to owe money, but international finances don't work thatway, do they.
Thank you ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
It's all deeply tragic. With record low interest rates, the government should be borrowing and investing like crazy. Instead we've had to borrow to cover Osborne's inadequacies...
I am not sad to see Cameron and Osborne gone, it will be nice not to have to see their smug faces any more.
The problem is, I have such low expectations of a May government. Hunt is still in post, we have a smart foolish person as Foreign secretary.
It's all so depressing.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I wait two weeks now to see a GP. Forward to a modern Conservative Britain! (Unless you're ill or poor).
In my local surgery, there is always a doctor assigned to seeurgent cases, so, as happened several months ago, I phoned early and was given an appointment that afternoon. (As it turned out to be a TIA I spent the next 24 hours in hospital!)
Do you have that sort of system where you are?
Yes, it must be a very badly-run surgery which says "you can't see a doctor for 2 weeks under any circumstances". At my local surgery the medical staff and the much-maligned administrators perform prodigies of service and organisation. On the 2 occasions when I have needed to in recent years, I have been able to see a doctor that day.
I agree that there is a national debate to be had on how much we can reasonably continue to expect from the NHS, but it will be impossible to have that debate while people continue to expect that everything they want or need will be provided instantly for free, and while politicians continue to stoke that belief to get easy votes.
Well, lucky you. Surveys seem to show that waiting times have been increasing, and two weeks is expected to become the norm. But the Tories favour private health, and are going to starve such services of money.
http://tinyurl.com/hcsfne6
I'm not trying to be smug, but I do believe that it's not just funding that is the issue with the NHS. I come across some services which are models of efficiency, and others which are, well, not so good. Now some may be better funded than others, but to say that the NHS is generally starved of funds is too simplistic. Really good staff make all the difference, and I include the managers and administrators in this, people who far too often get bad-mouthed just for existing and doing their jobs.
The fact that people are so important makes it lunacy, of course, to piss off the junior doctors in the way that Hunt has. These are highly qualified people who can sell their skills in a global market, so we should do our best to keep them happy. That doesn't necessarily mean "stuffing their mouths with gold", there are many other things which contribute to making any job bearable.
Waiting times are increasing, I know. To be frank, given the rapidly ageing population, and the fact that medical science now seems to be able to prolong the process of dying almost indefinitely, it's a tribute to the NHS that they aren't going up faster. Demand for healthcare is pretty much infinite, and resources are all too finite. Maybe a Corbyn-led government would bring waiting times down, maybe not. Personally I don't think we'll ever get to find out. For the time being we're stuck with the execrable Hunt.
Maybe those of us who can afford private healthcare should use it for some of our routine "worried well" complaints, and let the NHS concentrate on the really serious stuff?
There are also simple things that can be implemented. Making me see a doctor before I can re-order my innocuous medication that I've been taking forever, that's just silly. Waste of everyone's time.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Some might say it is already too late to instigate rational debate about setting affordable and sensible proposals for what the NHS covers, or how a dedicated mandatory health insurance might be introduced, but it has to be done.
If the population as a whole does not have enough money to pay for the NHS via taxes, how is it possible for it to have enough money to pay for the NHS via mandatory health insurance???
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
I'm guessing that the real power in foreign policy is going to be Mrs May and that the job of the Foreign Secretary will be to manage the FCO and schmooze diplomats at receptions.
Oh, I know how it's possible to explain how it might work in theory - I just doubt it'll work in practice, neither of the two others have a particularly great reputation for persistence and it's assuming an awful lot of competence from May of the sort that cannot be evidenced so far.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Yes, I know it is received wisdom in some quarters that "the tories" hold as an article of faith the destruction of the NHS but that is ducking the issue.
And yet you go on to suggest that the role of the NHS is taken over by mandatory health insurance.
quote:
The expectation that the NHS can keep on offering cradle-to-grave care for all, medical services from GPs and health visitors to critical care, all surgical procedures from open-heart surgery to repair of botched cosmetic procedures, plus fertility treatment, free contraception, etc, etc, etc is not only naive, it is fundamentally dishonest since anyone with a modicum of intellegence must realise that what the "hands off 'our' NHS" attitude implies is that all governments must, effectively, give a blank cheque to the NHS, regardless of any other items which the country may need.
This paragraph moves from cradle-to-grave care, to botched cosmetic procedures, fertility treatment (which presumably are supposed to be frivolous) and then having tarred cradle-to-grave care with the brush of cosmetic procedures alleges fundamental dishonesty on the grounds of an incoherent non-sequitur.
Botched procedures of all kinds have to be treated. One thing that would benefit the NHS is to make private health care providers cover the costs of the consequences of botched procedures, since at the moment a fair proportion of A&E time is spent dealing with the consequences of the inadequacies of the private system.
quote:
I too have benefited from the NHS in my time, but I recognise that the combination of an increasing population, a much larger population of very elderly, a massive increase in chronic conditions caused by obesity and, not least, the huge increase in treatments and drugs available (at a cost) for most conditions, we are bound to - may already have - reach a situation where the demands cannot be paid for.
'Cannot be paid for' is not the same as 'are such as politicians are unwilling to pay for', which is what you actually mean.
NICE was founded to deal with some of those issues, in particular keeping down the costs of drugs. I do hope you approve of strengthening its powers. I do hope you also approve of legislation to make drug testing more transparent so that new drugs are only introduced when they're actually more effective than older drugs.
quote:
Some might say it is already too late to instigate rational debate about setting affordable and sensible proposals for what the NHS covers, or how a dedicated mandatory health insurance might be introduced, but it has to be done. Simply repeating the mantra that "our" NHS must be preserved is not the answer, nor is demonising public servants and politicians who are trying to achieve the impossible by running it.
Who are these 'some' who might say that it is too late, and what happens if it is too late?
Since mandatory health insurance is in every country where it exists either more expensive or has worse outcomes and in at least one notorious instance both, I don't see why we should discuss introducing it. If we were unable to afford an NHS we would also be unable to afford mandatory health insurance.
If politicians' proposed reforms of the NHS look like they're trying to achieve the impossible, it's not simply demonising them to point out that the fault may lie in the politicians and the proposed reforms.
The politicians are not averse to a spot of demonising the public servants - as wasteful or greedy - when it suits them.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
It may, for aught I know, be an appropriate time to have an honest conversation about what we can and cannot expect from the National Health Service, but there do appear to be a number of members of the Cabinet who have just won an EU Referendum on a policy of spending an extra £350 million a week on it, if we leave the EU.
Were they all a bunch of lying fucks? Say it ain't so!
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
How is a "dedicated mandatory health insurance" more affordable than an NHS? Either you're raising more money by making the mandatory premiums bigger than the curren tax share for the NHS (in which case it's functionally a tax increase, and you could achieve the same effect by just increasing taxes), or you're not raising more money, in which case you're assuming some magic efficiency savings.
The only way a heath insurance scheme becomes more affordable than an NHS is if it performs less healthcare, and by that you mean less healthcare for poor people.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The only way a heath insurance scheme becomes more affordable than an NHS is if it performs less healthcare, and by that you mean less healthcare for poor people.
My first reaction was that they do not care about the poor. But, on reflection, I think they must as they seem intent on creating more of them.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Humble Servant
Shipmate
# 18391
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Some might say it is already too late to instigate rational debate about setting affordable and sensible proposals for what the NHS covers, or how a dedicated mandatory health insurance might be introduced, but it has to be done.
If the population as a whole does not have enough money to pay for the NHS via taxes, how is it possible for it to have enough money to pay for the NHS via mandatory health insurance???
I suspect we all know the answer to that question. If people die preventable deaths when the government were supposed to pay for the treatment, we must all feel the shame. If they die because they were under insured, that's their own silly fault and we can bury them with a clear conscience.
Although we all believe in free health care for ourselves, I believe people in Britain today prioritise the right to become a millionaire above the right to free healthcare.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Apr 2015
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
It may, for aught I know, be an appropriate time to have an honest conversation about what we can and cannot expect from the National Health Service, but there do appear to be a number of members of the Cabinet who have just won an EU Referendum on a policy of spending an extra £350 million a week on it, if we leave the EU. ...
It's very important to keep on reminding them about this, in season and out of it. And all the other promises they made. And everything else they claimed.
Bang on about it and keep on banging.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
It may, for aught I know, be an appropriate time to have an honest conversation about what we can and cannot expect from the National Health Service, but there do appear to be a number of members of the Cabinet who have just won an EU Referendum on a policy of spending an extra £350 million a week on it, if we leave the EU. ...
It's very important to keep on reminding them about this, in season and out of it. And all the other promises they made. And everything else they claimed.
Bang on about it and keep on banging.
I think you're right. However, I find it hard to do when I knew from the start it was impossible.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
L’organist: bit of a tangent, but paying for contraceptives is excellent economic sense. In my neck of the woods, the pill costs the princely sum of €2 a month give or take. The expense to the State of a woman getting pregnant is considerably higher.
Humble servant: France actually does have essentially a private healthcare service paid for by the State. You pay the (self-employed) professional upfront and then claim a refund from the Social Security (70% of standard rates set by the Government) and your top-up insurance. FWIW it looks to me like it works better than the current set-up in the UK. That said, it has problems of its own and I think the situation is going to get untenably expensive at some point. The funding of healthcare is a major headache for all developed economies with aging populations and we need to be honest about that.
[Esprit d'escalier]
[ 15. July 2016, 08:34: Message edited by: la vie en rouge ]
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
alienfromzog
Thank you for your post and for the link to an expert view. I suppose it's that I personally have always hated to owe money, but international finances don't work thatway, do they.
Thank you
It's all deeply tragic. With record low interest rates, the government should be borrowing and investing like crazy. Instead we've had to borrow to cover Osborne's inadequacies...
I am not sad to see Cameron and Osborne gone, it will be nice not to have to see their smug faces any more.
The problem is, I have such low expectations of a May government. Hunt is still in post, we have a smart foolish person as Foreign secretary.
It's all so depressing.
AFZ
Is the argument that because we didn't borrow to catalytically expand the economy we've had to borrow to compensate an under-performing one failing further?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
It may, for aught I know, be an appropriate time to have an honest conversation about what we can and cannot expect from the National Health Service,
but there do appear to be a number of members of the Cabinet who have just won an EU Referendum on a policy of spending an extra £350 million a week on it, if we leave the EU. ...
It's very important to keep on reminding them about this, in season and out of it. And all the other promises they made. And everything else they claimed.
Bang on about it and keep on banging.
Why? Is that going to make the Brexit vote (or voters) disappear?
All this bitterness seems like a good way to give yourself a heart attack. Then you really will need the NHS!
In any case, not all Brexiteers voted as they did because they expected the NHS to be flush with money afterwards.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Is the argument that because we didn't borrow to catalytically expand the economy we've had to borrow to compensate an under-performing one failing further?
Yes, in part. There's more to it than that but yes, this is true.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
L’organist: bit of a tangent, but paying for contraceptives is excellent economic sense. In my neck of the woods, the pill costs the princely sum of €2 a month give or take. The expense to the State of a woman getting pregnant is considerably higher.
Humble servant: France actually does have essentially a private healthcare service paid for by the State. You pay the (self-employed) professional upfront and then claim a refund from the Social Security (70% of standard rates set by the Government) and your top-up insurance. FWIW it looks to me like it works better than the current set-up in the UK. That said, it has problems of its own and I think the situation is going to get untenably expensive at some point. The funding of healthcare is a major headache for all developed economies with aging populations and we need to be honest about that.
[Esprit d'escalier]
The French do generally love their system and with good reason it's very good.
But
1) It's significantly more expensive (~30%)
2) There are some issues with a pay-by-procedure system that are avoided with the NHS. (And there are converse benefits - you have to weigh one against the other).
Ultimately though - the NHS is significantly more efficient. If you want to cope with expanding costs, I would suggest that using the most efficient system is the way to go. If you have a policy of destabilizing and deconstructing the most efficient system then it seems to suggest the aim is somewhat different.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
As I understand it, the creeping trend in the French system is to increase the share of the cost covered by private health insurance, arranged either by individuals or by their employers.
It is one of the best systems in the world right now, but there are definitely questions about its sustainability.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Is the argument that because we didn't borrow to catalytically expand the economy we've had to borrow to compensate an under-performing one failing further?
Yes, in part. There's more to it than that but yes, this is true.
AFZ
Or you could say that Osborne's catastrophic austerity policies have cost billions of pounds to the economy, have choked it considerably, and in part, led to Brexit, since some people understandably felt pissed off at services being cut, eroded, or closed down. Ah well, the new government can abandon austerity now, so if you want to get from A to B, the best way to do it is go backwards to begin with. This is Torybollockseconomics.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
It may, for aught I know, be an appropriate time to have an honest conversation about what we can and cannot expect from the National Health Service,
but there do appear to be a number of members of the Cabinet who have just won an EU Referendum on a policy of spending an extra £350 million a week on it, if we leave the EU. ...
It's very important to keep on reminding them about this, in season and out of it. And all the other promises they made. And everything else they claimed.
Bang on about it and keep on banging.
Why? Is that going to make the Brexit vote (or voters) disappear?
All this bitterness seems like a good way to give yourself a heart attack. Then you really will need the NHS!
In any case, not all Brexiteers voted as they did because they expected the NHS to be flush with money afterwards.
Guilty conscience much?
It's actually pretty salient that we're expected to have an honest discussion about the NHS when a number of serving Cabinet Ministers have attained their office by, among other reasons, lying about the level of funding available to same. Let's face it, without Brexit, it's unlikely that Fox, Davis and Leadsom would be in the Cabinet and Johnson would have been at some mid-level Cabinet position learning that a talent for the winning phrase is no substitute for being a capable administrator in government. When the recession bites and there is less money available for such frivolous luxuries as schools and hospitals it won't be entirely unreasonable to point out that the consequences of this particular course of action were not entirely in keeping with what its advocates suggested might be the case.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jeremy Hunt is staying at the Department of Health.
This was nearly a foregone conclusion. It merely emphasises the lie that they ever intended to slow down the destruction of the NHS.
70 years on and the NHS still hasn't been destroyed...
Not for want of trying. Since Sir Keith Joseph gained any kind of foothold in making Conservative policy destroying the NHS has been that party's priority. KJ was a swivel-eyed loon while Thatcher was a moderating influence.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Jeremy Hunt is staying at the Department of Health.
This was nearly a foregone conclusion. It merely emphasises the lie that they ever intended to slow down the destruction of the NHS.
70 years on and the NHS still hasn't been destroyed...
Not for want of trying. Since Sir Keith Joseph gained any kind of foothold in making Conservative policy destroying the NHS has been that party's priority. KJ was a swivel-eyed loon while Thatcher was a moderating influence.
If it's a priority it's not a priority that they have done very much about.
Granted, since 2010 they haven't spent as much on it as they indicated that they were going to and, granted, they wasted an inordinate amount of time and money in a rather pointless reorganisation that they had promised not to do. They are, nonetheless, spending £116.4 billion on it. Which is, on the face of it, rather an odd thing to do if getting rid of it was a priority.
Inasmuch as the Tories have priorities they are largely a) get re-elected and b) spend less money on things whilst getting the same, or better, outcomes. Which is a perfectly good reason not to support them but the "Woe unto Illium" stuff does rather boil down to "who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes".
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
Ultimately though - the NHS is significantly more efficient. If you want to cope with expanding costs, I would suggest that using the most efficient system is the way to go.
Generally international comparisons bear that out - in terms of outcomes the NHS compares favourably with other OECD countries which fund their health services in similar manners:
http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20151121_BRC537.png
The NHS doesn't do as well when compared with France and Germany - but they spend more public money on their health services, even before private spending is involved.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Guilty conscience much?
It's actually pretty salient that we're expected to have an honest discussion about the NHS when a number of serving Cabinet Ministers have attained their office by, among other reasons, lying about the level of funding available to same. Let's face it, without Brexit, it's unlikely that Fox, Davis and Leadsom would be in the Cabinet and Johnson would have been at some mid-level Cabinet position learning that a talent for the winning phrase is no substitute for being a capable administrator in government. When the recession bites and there is less money available for such frivolous luxuries as schools and hospitals it won't be entirely unreasonable to point out that the consequences of this particular course of action were not entirely in keeping with what its advocates suggested might be the case.
These politicians are all in the same political party. That party was always going to have more or less the same policy towards the NHS, regardless of Brexit. IOW, if the NHS is going to suffer outside the EU then it was also going to suffer inside the EU.
The only way for us to influence what happens to the NHS will be to vote for a different political party when the chance comes. It won't be too long.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
If (destroying the NHS) is a priority it's not a priority that they have done very much about.
Granted, since 2010 they haven't spent as much on it as they indicated that they were going to and, granted, they wasted an inordinate amount of time and money in a rather pointless reorganisation that they had promised not to do. They are, nonetheless, spending £116.4 billion on it. Which is, on the face of it, rather an odd thing to do if getting rid of it was a priority.
Inasmuch as the Tories have priorities they are largely a) get re-elected and b) spend less money on things whilst getting the same, or better, outcomes. Which is a perfectly good reason not to support them but the "Woe unto Illium" stuff does rather boil down to "who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes".
They were wasting time and money well before then. Don't you remember the "internal market" that added a whole tier of middle-management to every General Practice? That was in the late eighties and early nineties and I can remember the "jollies" my brother-in-law went on (he was one of these managers for some years) that it cost a hell of a lot! You could, I suppose, justify it by saying that x procedures have been done in a BUPA clinic at 70% of the cost that the local NHS hospital, but the NHS still had to provide all the follow up care and, of course, there were all those managers to feed and water.
[ 15. July 2016, 14:04: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Guilty conscience much?
It's actually pretty salient that we're expected to have an honest discussion about the NHS when a number of serving Cabinet Ministers have attained their office by, among other reasons, lying about the level of funding available to same. Let's face it, without Brexit, it's unlikely that Fox, Davis and Leadsom would be in the Cabinet and Johnson would have been at some mid-level Cabinet position learning that a talent for the winning phrase is no substitute for being a capable administrator in government. When the recession bites and there is less money available for such frivolous luxuries as schools and hospitals it won't be entirely unreasonable to point out that the consequences of this particular course of action were not entirely in keeping with what its advocates suggested might be the case.
These politicians are all in the same political party. That party was always going to have more or less the same policy towards the NHS, regardless of Brexit. IOW, if the NHS is going to suffer outside the EU then it was also going to suffer inside the EU.
The only way for us to influence what happens to the NHS will be to vote for a different political party when the chance comes. It won't be too long.
"These politicians" said if we left the EU we could spend another £350 million quid a week on the NHS. These politicians look set to send us into a recession. Recessions are not known for periods when public spending rises. Is it now somehow impolite to point these things out and draw the appropriate conclusions/.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Do you believe that the recession will be the natural outcome of Brexit, or is Brexit simply a convenient excuse for something that the Tory party wanted to happen anyway?
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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