h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So what do we think?

His argument is that healthcare is getting more expensive so we need to pay as we go.

Translation= The best health care will only be for the rich.

I am appalled.

Who?

Charles Clarke at a guess.

Who is Charles Clarke?

Charles Clark is a labour politician, responsible for something or other.

This is the first I've heard of this. I'm going to go look it up now, but does anyone have information?

Gosh, and there I was thinking that the taxes we pay went towards healthcare...

Making people pay for healthcare would be a big mistake and cause a lot of bad feeling... the NHS may not be brilliant but it's the envy of those countries that don't have free healthcare.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6344043.stm

And what he is proposing is ending the "Free at the point of use" NHS.

Like I said that means the poorest will get second rate health care.

The best health care always *has* been for the rich, since they can to up state provision with private provision.

To the extent the NHS would charge for some care, likely the very poorest would be exempt, and the people hardest hit would be those just well-off enough to be considered able to pay.

There are already lots of charges - optical & dental examinations & treatment, prescriptions - with exemptions for those on low incomes.
In effect the rich will pay more to subsidise the poor. Some will be not quite poor enough for concessions & consequently perhaps neglect their medical care.

it's exactly those people who need to make sure that the "free at the point of care" health service continues.

I already know so many people who have less checks than they should because of payments. Or who don't always pick up their prescriptions.

Is anyone surprised ?

Everything this government does now is designed to raise money to offer some sort of bribe to the electorate before the next election.

Wait for the new raft of "green" taxes that we can expect.

>>"Everything this government does now is designed to raise money to offer some sort of bribe to the electorate before the next election."

You'd never get a [more] right-wing government doing something like that, would you?

Is there such a thing as a more right-wing government? I thought the next step was handing out black shirts with snazzy arm-bands.

"You'd never get a [more] right-wing government doing something like that, would you?"

All governments offer bribes come election time - the further you're in the brown and smelly the bigger the bribe you have to finance.

Course the other option is to declare war on someone and say you're a traitor if you don't support the government - but they've already used that one.

I´m just disappointed there is not an actual Safety Elephant.

>>"Course the other option is to declare war on someone and say you're a traitor if you don't support the government - but they've already used that one."

I refer you to my previous answer.

I heard yesterday on the radio that something like 25 percent of government spending in the UK goes to the NHS
So it seems that you are paying for it
Nothing is free

Some NHS facts:

Between 2000 and 2004 the number of NHS admin staff rose from 159,141 to 211,690.
There are forty-two seperate quangoes working in healthcare
£81bn was spent on the NHS in 2005/06 and it still ended up with a £500m deficit.
It isn't in the interests of Hospitals to be successful. Ipswich Hospital managed to cut waiting times to see consultants to just one week. As a result, it was docked £2.5 million because it obviously didn't need it. Waiting times promptly went back up.

But the NHS is becoming commercially aware. Doctors surgeries were encouraged to install video screens in waiting rooms to raise advertising revenue. However, the only companies interested in advertising were "ambulance-chaser" legal firms encouraging patients to sue for malpractice.

Nice to know what we're paying for

>>"It isn't in the interests of Hospitals to be successful. Ipswich Hospital managed to cut waiting times to see consultants to just one week. As a result, it was docked £2.5 million because it obviously didn't need it. Waiting times promptly went back up."

Technically it was not paid (by the debt-ridden PCT) for treatments which were done sooner than it had previously contracted to do them.
It's still the end result of some seemingly daft logic, but nothing to do with whether anyone thought it *needed* the money.

>>"£81bn was spent on the NHS in 2005/06 and it still ended up with a £500m deficit."

You could equally say "... ONLY ended up with..."

It's not as if there is some finite amount of funding that is clearly 'enough'. Deficits come about for all sorts of reasons apart simply from how much money is spent in total.