The AXA poll referred to in the Guardian this morning is revealing. Amongst the information it discloses is:
More than half of those polled said they expected to have to pay for treatments on the NHS within the next three years, with only one in five consumers confident that the coalition's original health plans would make the NHS better.
I am quite sure that people are absolutely right to have these concerns: when the Conservatives are intent on privatising the NHS whilst blatantly lying about the fact,people are right to think that the service they will get will be much worse than that which they have enjoyed to date.
Of course people will in that circumstance think about paying for services that the NHS previously supplied. That is the sole intent of Andrew Lansley's reforms. His one and only aim is to promote private healthcare and the profit to be made from it in the United Kingdom. Everything else, including the well-being of the people of this country, the welfare of the people who work in the NHS, our tradition of community care and the compassion that the NHS has shown over generations to the people of this country is irrelevant to him.
No wonder people don't trust him.
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My bet is that it will be a charge for an appointment with your GP.
We pay for formerly free services already! I imagine successive governments,whatever their political leanings, have seen the cost problems ahead,with the demands for ever increasing standards and expense of treatment,and increases in an ageing population. So why should not,for example,a well paid person pay a modest fee to see his/her GP,if it helps offset some of these costs? I certainly happens with dental treatment,and prescription charges!
I understand anyway,that most of these “reforms” could have been carried out within the existing legislation,and no doubt a less attention-so, not the brightest of approaches,was it?
Strip out all private money leeching off the NHS (PFI’s, PPP’s, cleaning contracts, etc) and watch the price of NHS services drop like a stone.
The cost of bringing the NHS back up to speed after years of tory meddling and the proliferation of PFI schemes massively driving up NHS costs is the chief reason it costs about £100 billion per year to run the NHS.
Still great value for money though, despite that.
I concur with your last sentence.
However,the Labour Party was last in government between 1997 and 2010-so what is your point? Is it that they corrected nothing,so were useless as well?
“However,the Labour Party was last in government between 1997 and 2010-so what is your point? Is it that they corrected nothing,so were useless as well?”
On this point. yes. I’m no fan of New Labour…..and never have been. They carried on largely where the tories left off.
I hope some form of fees are paid, my GPs waiting room would get dramatically less busy from the people coming in with a cold. I suggest 20% of cost up to a maximum of say GBP200. However free to the under 18s, 10% (and GBP100) for the 65’s – 75’s and free over 75. Most countries do this in some form and it makes people think about the value of the services they are getting.
The reality with health is we can always spend more on it, when it is not costing people individually they always want the “best” care, the latest test even if the marginal benefits are almost zero. When they are seeing the cost their decisions are often different. Over the next 50 years the availability of treatments will only grow – we will be faced with decisions do we spend more on health or our children’s education, is it better to invest in a new hayfever remedy, or more education, or better roads. Our current system leaves these decisions in a central government that cannot possibly make these decisions effectively, at the least the funding for the NHS has to be devolved to a regional level. But it is essential that these decisions and there cost become obvious to individuals, one method may be a hypothecated tax (say a flat 20% tax on all income to cover the NHS costs), if politicians want to spend more or your income they would have to sell you the benefits. I believe the argument for the NHS costs to be treated as a special case and hypothecated is strong because of the current lack of link between peoples demands of the NHS and their perception of how it gets funded coupled with the sentimentality this subject brings and the inevitable future cost increases due to technology.
“I hope some form of fees are paid, my GPs waiting room would get dramatically less busy from the people coming in with a cold. I suggest 20% of cost up to a maximum of say GBP200. However free to the under 18s, 10% (and GBP100) for the 65′s — 75′s and free over 75. Most countries do this in some form and it makes people think about the value of the services they are getting.”
Don’t believe for a minute that we can’t afford a proper well-run free at the point of use health service. We are told that we can’t afford decent pensions without raising the age of retirement or without raising contributions despite the fact that there is a big National Insurance Contributions surplus.
As I have already said, a huge amount of money is leeched off the NHS by PFI and other private contractors and this is undoubtedly why NHS costs are £100 billion annually. Watch costs fall dramatically if these were stripped out and the state allowed to run the NHS without interference.
As I said, don’t believe a government can’t afford the money for somehing if it want’s to. There was no money to save the thousands of jobs lost at Rover back in 2001 or enough to fund decent public sector pay and pensions, but when the banks went bust due to their own greed and stupidity, there was hundreds of billions of pounds found to bail them out with. Banks were essentially given blank cheques and asked to write whatever amount they liked on them. Eventually, the banking sector was bailed out to the tune of £1.4 trillion.
On other words, money couldn’t be found to give ordinary people better living standards by investing in much needed jobs and supplying better wages and pensions, but there was more than enough to bail the banks out of their own mess when the entire banking system could have simply been nationalised.
Believe me, there is ALWAYS enough money when it is expedient! What is missing is political will, not money!