DiamondGooner wrote:Cash for health is a recipe for disaster and without an National Health Service the Private companies don't have a standard they need to be superior to, only each other and that can easily as with America, turn into a race to the bottom.
In the countries it does work in its because the Gov't are held to account, I don't trust British politicians at all, especially when they get a taste of the money.
We'll have medication soaring and all sorts because once the cats out of the bag that's it, people will have to re-mortgage their homes to pay for operations, life long debt for incurable conditions, you name it .......... no thanks.
Every decent country in the West bar a couple has a National Insurance for a reason.
Couldn't agree more DG ... UFGN just wants to bury his head in the sand and wish that a broken system suddenly magically gets fixed - that ain't happening
We must keep the NHS - free at the point of delivery basic heath care is a corner-stone of UK culture - it has to be preserved
The question is how?
When you say "
every decent country in the West has National Insurance" you are bang on, however almost none provide the unlimited levels of services and medication that the UK attempts to do, most provide basic services with 'non-standard' services and prescription medicine chargeable, or covered under private insurance.
Germany has the oldest social health system it costs then 10% of their GDP they are looking at ways to reduce this via extending private health insurance to all workers, thus moving them away from statutory health insurance (
NI as we know it) - like the UK they are struggling to keep the system running - rating avearge
Spain provides basic NI but that only covers about 15% of Health costs, the rest is all covered by private health insurance - excellent
France has national health insurance that covers 70% of GP care and 35% of prescription medication - very good
UK has frankly a weird system, the National Health Service is now devolved and Scotland, NI, Wales are doing their own thing - average
The problem all these countries faced or are now facing is rising costs - as treatments and medications advance the cost of delivering them grows exponentially every year
France tackled it by reducing the amount the state pays for ... no longer free but subsidised
Spain tackled it by only providing basic services free and everything else under private insurance
Germany is tackling it by giving people an opt-out to private medical insurance
Holland has a 60-40 state funded - privately funded split
None of these countries have abandoned the national health system, they all still own the vast majority of medical facilities and employ 10's of 1000's of medical professionals, what they don't do is pay for 100% - they simply can't afford it
Only the countries with high income small populations such as Norway, Sweden, Switzerland still have fully tax-payer funded health care - in all three countries health care is either entirely or at least partly run by the private sector.
England (
the NHS is now devolved in the UK) needs to do something ... either reduce the free services, or find another way of getting paid more money ... that's what every major western country has already done or is in the process of doing ... we can't hold back the tide ....
The US model is utter shite ... they spend a staggering 16% of their GDP on medical services and about 80% of that is sucked up by Big Pharma ... no way that should ever come anywhere near the UK, project fear might be kicking that around but it's simply not happening.
The days of saying - just stick another 5p on taxes - they are long gone, the ever shrinking percentage of tax payers simply can't cover the ever growing cost of the NHS.
Every other country has or is addressing this issue, so why can't we?
