Brit vs States healthcare system

[jsmith_tsu]

That's not too bad... the NHS comes out of our taxes.

Mr Swole got KTFO. Any thoughts? U r lucky Windmiller didn't get to him first. Would have hurt Me. Swole real bad.

Def would have needed that legendary healthcare system.

[!! Anorak]

Mr Swole got KTFO. Any thoughts? U r lucky Windmiller didn't get to him first. Would have hurt Me. Swole real bad.

Def would have needed that legendary healthcare system.

I've done a few routines in NSB, but I'm not getting much bite.

[jsmith_tsu]

I've done a few routines in NSB, but I'm not getting much bite.

Luv ur work by the way. But today, the sun set on the Brit Empire

[D4thincarnation]

The US.

I can't get good health care, I have several injuries and told by doctors that only pro-athlete can get care you just have to wait till it cures itself. Even though these issues have been ongoing for years


Unless you are dying or can't work they don't want to help you at all.

[Citizen Koba]

US is almost entirely private and UK is almost entirely public, and while neither system is perfect, which is best?

Was gonna write a big essay, but I ain't got the time today and besides, ain't sure who'd bother to read it anyways. Found this while I was looking up some stuff and it nicely summarises the process I have personally observed over the past 30 odd years. Pay special attention to the media smear campaign since most of the anti-NHS articles (particularly the almost daily scare stories in certain rags) are to be found in the fairly narrow right wing segment of the press whose proprietors are fully in favour of the privatisation of this multi £ Billion industry... in short, be very sceptical of what you read. Sure - there are problems and were even before the campaign to scrap the NHS began under Thatcher, but many of the problems it's now facing are a result of deliberate and systematic policy.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-10474075.html

1. Create a Market

Ken Clarke, Health Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, got the ball rolling by introducing a market into the NHS. This introduced competition by turning hospital trusts into providers of services and GP/Community trusts into purchasers of services. The result? Administration costs actually rose, and this internal market alone accounts for up to 10 per cent of the budget or £10 billion a year.

2. Introduce Public-Private partnerships

New Labour expanded complicated financial models known as Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) - originally developed under John Major's government and intended to reduce government borrowing by bringing private investors into public sector projects - to build infrastructure including new hospitals. The original cost of hospital PFI projects is estimated at £11.6 billion. However, repayments are now projected to reach approximately £80 billion – for hospitals that are already built. The total PFI tab will top £301 billion , despite an original cost of £54.7 billion. The difference of nearly £250 billion would cover the entire NHS budget for more than two years.

3. Facilitate the Corporate Takeover

From 2003, Foundation Trusts were introduced converting hospitals into semi-independent businesses. These trusts – which own and manage hospitals - can now make up to half their income from private patients. Meanwhile, the privatisation of Out of Hours Care by the likes of Harmoni and Serco has been followed by allegations of cost-cutting and sub-standard care. GP services have also been outsourced. Virgin Assura claims to look after 3 million GP patients.

4. Install a Revolving Door

A succession of health secretaries and ministers went off to work for private healthcare after leaving government. NHS Chief Executive Simon Stevens previously worked for giant US healthcare corporation UnitedHealth after a stint as Blair’s senior health policy advisor. The top tiers of the Department of Health and NHS management have been infiltrated by management consultants. Monitor, the independent regulator of the NHS, exemplifies this culture of regulatory capture with virtually the entire board having a corporate background.

5. Organise a Great Big Sell Off

Private companies are engaged in an “arms race” to win NHS contracts. Virgin, Circle, Bupa, Serco, UnitedHealth and even Lockheed Martin are all in the running. Last year alone, out of £9.63 billion deals signed, £3.54 billion (nearly 40 per cent) went to private firms.

6. Run a Smear Campaign

The Government’s case for change largely rests on the premise of the NHS no longer being affordable and that it needs to be modernised. Yet we spend significantly less than the EU average and the likes of France, Germany and the Netherlands. Out of the G7, only Italy has the same level of spending. The Commonwealth Fund rates the NHS as the best healthcare system in the world and the OECD describes it as one of the best performers in the world. It is overwhelmingly popular with the public.

7. Legislate for the Dismantling of the NHS

The Health & Social Care Act removes the Government’s responsibility for the NHS, passing it down to a series of other bodies instead. Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are forced to open contracts to unlimited privatisation. Private companies are “cherry-picking” lucrative contracts leaving NHS trusts with even less money. CCGs are to set to be privatised. It is difficult to believe but CCGs are now legally obliged to provide only emergency care and ambulances; the rest is up to their discretion. This translates into unlimited rationing.

8. Plot Against the NHS

A series of 1980s thinktank papers (one of which was authored by Conservative MPs Oliver Letwin and John Redwood) provided the blueprint for key policies. Back in 2005, Jeremy Hunt co-authored a book Direct Democracy calling for the NHS to be dismantled. It included the line: “Our ambition should be to break down the barriers between private and public provision, in effect denationalising the provision of health care in Britain”. David Cameron’s health advisor Nick Seddon, formerly of private healthcare company Circle, suggests that CCGs should be merged with private insurance companies and those who can afford to should contribute towards their health care.

9. Brew the Perfect Storm

The Government consistently claims the health budget is protected. In reality, the NHS has been forced to make cuts of up to £15-20 billion and these are being extended. Tens of NHS trusts are in danger of going bust with PFI debts as a major factor. Sixty-six hospitals face closures of some kind. Never mind that buying out or renegotiating PFI contracts would solve this problem at a stroke.

10. Introduce Universal Private Health Insurance

So how will this brave, new world look? Our health service will have clinical commissioning groups acting as insurance pools, buying care from private companies. The NHS will become a state insurer along the lines of Medicare in the US. Meanwhile, personal health budgets – which allow patients, rather than doctors, to decide how money is spent on treating their conditions - will be extended to 5 million people by 2018. This is likely to lead to co-payments funded through private insurance.

I'd add a particularly slippery addendum in that one of the major funding issues is that certain operations and service provision which can be run fairly quickly and efficiently are those areas first to be sold off - with payment from the NHS budget going into private hands at top rates, but where paliative or prolonged aftercare is required resulting from complications to these routine operations it is the public part of the service that picks up the bill. In short if the private companies fuck up, they don't have to pay for it. Win - win if you're in the private healthcare business (or a shareholder, which reportedly is a favoured destination of the £s of former ministers).

https://defendournhsyork.wordpress.c...lthcare-firms/


Anyone got any more specific questions or wants evidence in support of these claims just let me know and I'll get on it when I got more time. Let me leave you with a question though; do you think a private for profit heath service with legal responsibilities to it's shareholders and a state run tax funded public health service are going to have the same strategies when it comes to providing public healthcare? In what ways do you believe they might differ?

With regards to comparing the health systems of the US and the UK I just ain't qualified to answer given my lack of in depth knowledge about the US healthcare system, but if the question concerns where you want to live or whatever and you're comparing them from that perspective I'd imagine that a decade or two from now the two systems will look remarkable similar - even in so far as they'll be owned by many of the same providers. If, on the other hand, the question is whether a socialistic National healthcare system stacks well against a private healthcare system I'd have to say it's not a legitimate comparison... the NHS has been systematically undermined for decades and if well run and given full government support instead of sabotage, would be in a very different condition. Even as it is there is some reason to believe provision is better for those on lower incomes in the UK, but then that beggars the broader question as to what you believe the role of state and government should be in providing for the welfare of it's citizens.

[Tom Cruise]

NHS has been great to me, and my GF's family over the years. My grandad passed away last year, but he had excellent care throughout his whole final illness (dementia, which im sure many would agree is tough on not just the patient but the whole family).

I dont ever want to live without the NHS. Its like a security blanket around the whole country. I cant even imagine the stress of life without it if you were poor or coming up on hard times and you or a family member got seriously sick.

The problem is that I also live in a country that voted for Brexit because they were promised more money for the NHS, but then also voted for 'The Brexit Party' which had 0 manifesto and is led by Nigel Farage, a known privatisation supporter. People are voting with their hearts at the moment not their heads, and Im worried about the future of institutions such as the NHS in the hands of right wingers like Farage, BJohnson, Gove, Jeremy Hunt and the like.