It is Fox News, not Daniel Hannan, who present a clear choice between the US and the UK health systems

Robbo

Your boy got busted, get over it.

Matthew Blott

Ah, "fair and balanced" Fox News.

David

"Daniel Hannan appeared on Fox News again yesterday night "

Oh for heaven's sake. Does this man's ego know no bounds? Christ.

Peter Buss

How very very sad David to find you as an apologist for Hannans dreadful display on Fox News. Even in the bits you have quoted Hannan was grossly misrepesenting the NHS.

skip waterhouse

I live in the US and my family healthcare premium is $1500 a month. My pension is $2200. Imagine the UK with a populaton that was 49% Republican--all they are interested in is huge corporate profits and they'll propogate any fantasy as truth to accomplish it. I'd give anything to have your healthcare system and actually be able to keep my pension.

Oor Wullie

As usual with minor "celebrities" Hannan is starting to believe his own publicity about being the "keeper of the faith" of the Conservative Party. Only an idiot would accept an invitation from Fox News to comment on this subject.
He should try standing for a Westminster seat spouting this nonsense and see what happens.

David Alexander

Skip Waterhouse

Without knowing what you earn those figures are meaningless.

Battle 2807

The whole Hannan thing has been misrepresented. He is saying that the NHS is not that wonderful - does he not have a point???
It really is not that wonderful, and it is expensive, and it is a post code lottery, and it is unfair. etc etc etc.

Verity

David - Hannan's handsome, highly articulate, quick-witted, personable, has excellent dress sense and is from Peru. Can't you give the guy a break?

Dave-o a Dave-o

Why is any of what Dan Hannan has been saying in anyway newsworthy?

Indeed had most journalists managed to be able to actually read then they may have noticed a little bestselling book by both himself and indeed MP Douglas Carswell advocating the very ideas and potential solutions to the NHS he espouses so eloquently years ago.

Indeed the last point of his latest blog ( www.hannan.co.uk ) raises a very interesting question anybody I'd love to know what the answer would be as that is what is being asked, no, forced down peoples throats with threats and intimidation should onyone oppose in the U.S.A.

Andy Leeds

Some of you should go and watch the interview. What Hannan said was actually true. If the NHS is so wonderful why are 5 year survival rates from Prostrate Cancer 90+% in the USA and only 50% in the UK ? That was in yesterdays Times.

blueskythinking

It's good that the bankrupt Left are wailing about Hannan again. It just shows how justifiably terrified they are of him. The more sense he talks, the louder they scream their brainless ad hominems - and the more out of touch they reveal themselves to be.

Mirtha Tidville

Interestingly I wonder if Hannan would have espoused these sort of views in the run up to the recent Euro elections...hmm answers on a postcard please......

Hysteria

re Fox "Fair and Balanced" - it sure has its flaws (the BBC of course being the pillar of honesty and fair play..)

but at least it is actually covering the level of dissent and debate on this (and other topics)

we British forget that the USA is a revolutionary republic, founded on some pretty solid principles that many CHers would love to see replicated in the UK.

Just as we bemoan the slipping of the "Great" from "Great Britain", the Americans likewise can see the steady decline of their country under a liberal democratic delusion - and don't mucj like what they see.

(and I don't mean just Obama - this has been happening under both parties)

Re the Hannan interview (I watched all of it) - as usual Hannity overstated his case, but Hannan made some good points - I think he used a little too much hyperbole but in essence was pointing out soem key issues.

As we have posted on these pages in the last few days, if you were to create a health service from scratch you would not invent the NHS - Hannan was pointing out that this is where the US could be heading.

Ian

Hi,
I'm from the UK,and worked in the NHS as a dental surgeon for over 30 years.The NHS tries to do too much;it costs a fortune;it is massively beaureaucratic,it is a blind monster ,it does encroach upon peoples' freedoms,in the UK now under Govt.supervision peoples' medical records are being collected and centralised, and it is the beginning of a slow and inexhorable slide over 50+ years to a total dependence on the State for everything.Eventually it opens the door only to the political party that backs "The System".A party that opposes it risks political suicide thus ultimately destroying Democracy.Free Medicine will ultimately enslave the people that it seeks to protect.
Government run Healthcare is a wolf in sheeps clothing.
I, at the moment cannot afford private medical insurance,I wish I could,it is one of the most important things that I am working for, because of my fear of going into an NHS hospital for treatment.

Rex Burr

I understand that Americans spend twice the amount that we do, relative to their GDP, on health care. America’s GDP per head is greater than ours and a large sector of the population gets no health care. Therefore much more cash is lavished on those that do get health care so it is hardly a surprise that their outcomes may be better.
Our problem is not the system but the amount of money people are prepared to spend through it. We could have an NHS with better results than America but people are not prepared to pay for it.
I’ve said it before; Dave seems like a nice chap but look over his shoulder, the Tory hinterland represents a dark place for ordinary people.

drakes drum

And,Mr Blackburn,who over blew this story?

Step forward that coward, David Cameron. Kicking Hannan, what a leader. He could quite easily have said that Hannan was being true to his personal beliefs, which he wrote in his and Douglas Carswell's book The Plan...But NO he had to insult him.

Cameron has shown, yet again, that he is no leader. A Bully yes. But a bully with no original thought. Unlike, of course, the excellent Mr Hannan.

Cameron is a disgrace.

J. Elliott

I was monitored for prostate cancer by the N.H.S and was given quick and effective treatment when it was found that I had it. This included scans to make sure that it hadn't spread. I have also had two hip replacement operations. All this has cost me nothing. If I had been one of the millions not covered by health insurance in America, I would probably be dead by now. Daniel Hannan is a fool.

Rather get sick abroad

I have nothing but bad experience with the NHS: my mother-in-law had a serious operation 15 years ago in a hospital I would not have allowed my dog treated, it was dirty from top to bottom. She was left without a bell to ring and she was in agony for 4 hours after the operation. I kept asking the nurse to call a doctor but ignored me until I shouted at her. Then all hell broke loose, doctors running, she was supposed to be checked every half an hour for pain as an indication of leaking pipe in her stomach.

I gave birth abroad because I couldn't accept the fact that only a midwife would attend it and not a doctor.

Last year, I had suspected gallstones: 2 weeks wait for an ultrasound (!!), + another 8 weeks for getting the result, had to see 4 doctors to get the pain killers right. Once in the queue in the surgery a man was shouting because his papers for his mortgage payments were lost TWICE. The phone lines had been down on and off for 6 months, computers down frequently. I was OK as I had private treatment during this waiting period. Cost £370.00, worth every penny.

Utter chaos and a very expensive chaos as well. Did any of you read an article a few years back when a private hospital offered the NHS heart surgery at the same cost as it would cost the NHS and the NHS couldn't figure out their own cost?

We lived in the US for 5 years, Hannan knows the country very well and he is right. The Americans would never put up with what we have here.

John

I'd say Fox News is fair and balanced. It's only the political commentators later on in the day (the people that everyone talk about, such as Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly) that lean conservative.

Besides, quite franky, considering every British and most other American news channels are liberal, it's refreshing (and much needed!) to have a channel that presents the other side.

TrevorsDen

Ian - "in the UK now under Govt.supervision peoples' medical records are being collected and centralised" -- and arse-hole Hannan has opened up a glorious opportunity for labour to tar the conservatives with the 'uncaring' brush and stay in power - thus denying power to the party that would prevent "being collected and centralised"

Jeremy

Given that this has turned into a political spat between Britain and the United States, I think that Dave was right to hold his line on the NHS. He recognised this quickly and moved quickly to reinforce it, so full marks (and kudos) to him for that. Obviously, in a political spat between Britain and the United States over the NHS, one is on the side of the Angels*...^^

And it is for precisely these same political reasons that Hannan has managed to make himself look like a fool - as though he is being used by Fox as the mouthpiece for an American system that nobody over here, and few over there, either like or want. The next time Fox News ring you up, Mr Hannan, just say "No". And try to remember where your national loyalties lie.

*(c) B.Disraeli

Fearless Frank

Robbo
August 14th, 2009 6:34pm

Your boy got busted, get over it.

Robbo, whatdoes the expression ' get over it" actually mean?

It sounds like one of those intensely irritating gestures forged in the same place as 'get a life'.

Verity

Drake's Drum nails it: Cameron is a bully.

I never trusted him, but when he sacked a military man with a very fine record, Patrick Mercer, to big himself up, my instinct was confirmed.

J Elliot, "All this has cost me nothing. If I had been one of the millions not covered by health insurance in America, I would probably be dead by now." No, Mr Elliot, it has not "cost me nothing". If you were employed all your working years, you have paid plenty for this service, as well as funding the same treatment, free, for immigrants who have never paid a penny.

The county hospitals in the US are funded by the county taxpayers, and in some of them, you may have got identical service. You have obviously never been to the United States so I suggest that your opinions are based on nothing but prejudice and jealousy.

Verity

Trevorsden - "thus denying power to the party that would prevent 'medical records being collected and centralised' ". You've seen that guaranteed somewhere, have you?

Care to share?

Rene C. Moya

David Blackburn, you're trying to cover Daniel Hannan's tail here. As Robbo said, '[y]our boy got busted, get over it.' You--and Battle 2807--seem to be arguing that, in all, Hannan's comments weren't actually THAT bad. Okay. He called the NHS a 'mistake' and that he wouldn't 'wish it' upon Americans. Right. Then you have others here mindlessly claiming the NHS is way too expensive.

For 2008-2009 the NHS in England, which covers some 55 million people, cost £92.5 billion. That means that the average English man, woman and child is fully-covered under the NHS on a per capita basis of about £1700 per annum. In the US Kaiser Permanente would offer me bare-minimum insurance, as a young man, of about $4000 per year. Of course depending on my medical history this would be different; and of course, that is NOT taking into account a catastrophic medical emergency.

Now, for the many Britons here rubbishing the NHS I would simply say: pay up and shut up. You don't like using your generous, if imperfect state system? You have the private sector to go to. Having one hasn't eliminated your ability to pay for the other.

If Britons find the NHS not up to scratch--and as an American living in Britain, who has had some of the best healthcare money can buy in the US, as my father is in the entertainment industry, I would nevertheless vigorously contest that--they could start by doing what New Labour have done and the Conservative's supposedly say they will do: keep up funding, and ratchet it up as necessary. Funded properly the NHS--which in my experience is nothing but a decent institution providing a good service--could be so much better. Institutional tinkering alone won't do it--many of Labour's 'reforms' have just added administrative costs--but neither will dismantling the NHS improve individual care. On the contrary, you get rid of the NHS and you will have a British version of America's highly inefficient patchwork of state and federal legal care minimums (for emergencies) and highly expensive (and rising) private insurance for the much better off.

Remember, it's not just an issue non-cover, although about 16% of Americans have little-to-no insurance. On top of that you have another 20-25% of the US population with under-insurance coverage, i.e. plans which cover only the most minimal costs, beyond which you must pay out of pocket. The result? Medical costs are THE SINGLE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR TO PERSONAL BANKRUPTCY IN THE UNITED STATES.

As for those who complain about 'dirty' NHS hospitals: really, I've seen worse. I remember once being in a terrible private hospital in North Hollywood when my uncle got sick--it was crowded, it was dirty, and the staff were unhelpful. And another time, when my sister was severely attacked by a dog, she had to wait for over an hour in ER in a major Pasadena hospital to be treated, despite bleeding profusely throughout--and this on a decent health plan at the time. (If not as good as the one my father now has via the studio system.)

What differentiates your experiences and mine? That at the end of these ordeals my uncle had to pay a hefty sum for his treatment, and my parents forked over another heavy load to stitch up her badly-torn face.

Poor quality AND expensive? And THIS is what you want?

BaiDaLong

Dear All,
The NHS killed my father. He was not allowed to have a second opinion, was misdiagnosed and treated for an illness (leukemia) he didn't have. The treatement caused heart failure and he died.

I've lived in the USA off and on for thirty years and I can assure you that this would NEVER happen there.

So you can keep you socialist dogma of unrelenting praise for the NHS. The truth is its inferior and kills people.

Some countries (Thailand, India and even China) now have thriving medical tourism businesses that are used extensively by UK citizens. If the NHS was so great these wouldn't exist.

Cheers

Ian
August 14th, 2009 9:29pm
"I'm from the UK,and worked in the NHS as a dental surgeon for over 30 years....
I, at the moment cannot afford private medical insurance,I wish I could,it is one of the most important things that I am working for, because of my fear of going into an NHS hospital for treatment."

Dentists in UK on average earns US$150k a year. You can't afford private healthcare? You have to be lying... about yourself being a dentist.

porkbelly

Plainly many here find the very idea of an independent broadcast network that doesn't serve as a government mouthpiece, or is even actively opposed to the prevailing state ideology, highly disturbing. And the notion that the tottering hulk of the NHS might stand wholesale reform - too frightening to contemplate. As for removing the surveillance cameras, computer snooping, the whole giant edifice of state paranoia and paternalism - don't we all feel so much safer now? So it must come as no shock that Cameron will plainly leave the whole mess in place and content himself with a bit of well-publicized turd polishing - he is only doing what a broad swath of the electorate want. For them the status quo isn't really so bad - what they object to is Brown himself, his personal loathsomeness, not his policies. Substitute DC, so pink and poised, add a little PR gloss...that is what they will vote for, not real change, certainly not for someone like Hannan. Cameron will, I predict, be a more dangerous leader for Britain than Brown because under him there will be no prospect of an alternative: there will only be the great social democratic / statist consensus with its millions of "stakeholders" to guarantee it can never change.

Carly

Funny how the BBC and others didn't cover Hannan when he attacked Gordon Brown in the EU Parliament, dismissing him as a mere Conservative MEP. But now as it's something damaging to the Tories he is the lead news. Media bias again.

Verity

Oh, for heavens' sake, Fearless Frank, get real!

Verity

David on 14 Aug 6:53 p.m. "Does this man's ego know no bounds? Christ."

To the moderators, if this individual had written the same post and closed it with "Allah" would it have got through moderation?

logdon

It's boiled down to play the game of truth or dare and unfortunately , after Labour's twelve years of outrageous dare Cameron feels that the only way to gain office is to follow the tried and tested smoke and mirror route.

He may be right, keep the powder dry. Get in without scaring the horses. Then proceed with the reform which only power bestows.

He may be wrong, attitudes are changing and the British thirst for even a smidgeon of honesty after the expenses debacle is spreading like bushfire.

Two events spring to mind.

Initially after Lansley blew the gaffe on spending the Tories panicked.

Omigaaaaaawd, what will we do? For all the world, like a bunch of teenage girls on hearing of Michael Jackson’s death.

Brown, sensing his moment, and feeling that the big daddy of straws had at last fallen into his grubby clutch, pounded away in his usual clunky monomaniac fashion. Tory cuts v Labour investment. Repeated and repeated and repeated. After all, it was the strategy of success in the first landslide and in more diluted form which gained a second term.

What was missing from the equation was how hated the Tories had become under Major and the putrid slime washing around anything involving the capital C word.

All that’s history now and in fact it’s reversed itself. Labour has now donned the mantle of party of money grabbing mountebanks and for evidence look to the way the scandalous expense story panned out.

Despite Labour’s, (and the BBC’s), best efforts Dave emerged, slightly scuffed around the edges compared with the full-blown bollo thecking and sheer hatred our electorate reserved for the Brown bunch.

Although it has to be said, Cameron did play it with superior grasp, (You Tube if you want to?) I’m sure that there was more at play. In a none too subtle nutshell, Labour is contaminated beyond all recovery. They have done in twelve years what the previous thousand could not accomplish. They have renaged on, and sold Britains true soul. For that forgiveness is an impossibility.

Moving to number two.

Hannan, on the face of it is a brilliant emerging politician. His coruscating EU attack on Brown sent shock waves around Westminster. And the media.

I’m sure the tidal ripples are still washing away at Labours crumbling breakwater.

It was, without doubt a major breakthrough and every point hit Brown’s multitudinous achilles heels with locked on precision. In reality Brown was an open goal but Dave’s pussyfooting just would not allow him to take the shot. Enter the Hannan who did. Round after round in perfect grouping.

Instinct tells me that he, if given the opportunity will eventually wipe the floor with Cameron and his crew. A politician with real conviction and true patriotic spirit is a rare sighting these days. He has it in spades and would bridge that tricky ideological gap between the BP and UKIP with the Conservatives with consummate ease. Isn’t that what we’re all crying out for? A party which represents Britain and it’s voting rump?

As for the US? We’re actually witnessing a true fighting spirit insurrection. The power of democracy and all those clingers to guns and religion as Obeyme sneerily portrays them, in the face of a proto-marxist dictator in action.

It’s like a rerun of the War of Independence over there. Right down to the Tea Party iconography. From what I see those folks are mighty riled at having their independence walked over and their hard earned bucks taxed to the hilt.

George III, eat your heart out. They’re at it again!

David

"free, for immigrants who have never paid a penny."

Aww, are those nasty people with brown skins getting healthcare? When they should be dying instead, eh?

Your lack of basic human decency is disturbing.

TomTom

Why is private dentistry so expensive in the UK compared with elsewhere and why is NHS dentistry so unavailable ?

Why are 75% hip replacements in England done privately ?

Why is abortion an NHS treatment ?

Percy

You have to be a little nutty to go on a Fox News programme, most of their anchors are barking.

dp damato

Mr. Hannan is an exceptional politician. He is a man of ideas who expresses his ideas in an intellectual and grown up way. If he thinks there should be a debate about the NHS based on his research, then he is a politician who is willing to go against the grain. Quite rare on both sides of the pond. If he ran for office in the US, he would win.

Republicans are correct in opposing Obama. More federal solutions means more Democratic voters. The majority of Americans are satisfied with their health care. I would rather have a health care system that is maybe not as good as France's versus a contiually expanding state that exists to give goodies to the Democratic Party.
The left wing scum have labeled Mr. Hannan unpatriotic. I thought enlightened, trendy, liberals were global citizens? Any left wing Guardianista or New Labour Stalinist who questions Hannan's patriotism should be asked if he now renounces his global citizenship.
Conservative Britain should demand after the election that a truth and reconciliation commission be set-up to find out why the New Labour cultural Marxists were so hell bent on demonizing ordinary Britons. What was their motivation in attempting to wreck Great Britain? Was it because of the preponderance of people with severe psychiatric disorders that were the movers and shakers within the Party? Was it because of a continuing intoxication with Marxism? Was it because of an obsessive need to control speech, thoughts, income, using codewords like tolerance and diversity and equality to advance their need for power? Can left wing Britain be excused because of the accumulating evidence that liberalism is a mass hypnosis? Are they simply too deluded to be aware of the harm that they caused? A truth and reconciliation commission is probably the only way to find out.

drakes drum

Trevorsden...Verity and others, myself included, are waiting?

Or is this yet another, in a very long list, of your opening mouth without engaging brain.

Oh, by the way, I can recall you praising Daniel Hannan over his speech in the EU, directed at Brown. Not a man talking out of his backside then was he!

One day you may wake up and realise that Hannan is a TORY and Cameron is most certainly NOT.

Don

J. Elliot. "....All this has cost me nothing........."
Could you explain to the rest of us poor saps who have to pay tax how you successfully avoided paying tax throughout your life. Just because you didn't pay at the time you received treatment does not mean you did not pay. You are aware of this aren't you?

David Ossitt

J.Elliot.

"All this has cost me nothing"

What a crass; stupid, ill-informed and partisan comment.

I too; have much to thank the surgeons; doctor’s nurses and ancillary workers in the health service for.

I have a number of chronic conditions that require a large amount of daily medication
that give some relief; I have had the benefit of very major surgery on three occasions in the past five years.

For all this I and my wife are very grateful.

But in this time I have seen criminal examples of waste and bad disorganised and sometimes totally incompetent management.

None of this superb medical help has been for free; as most of us have, I have paid income tax and national insurance, in my case for over fifty years.

Purchase tax, VAT, road tax and all of the myriad forms of duty, some subtle some not so subtle are all ways that we pay for the health service.

In paying all these; I have paid for my treatment, but the politicians will still rant and rave that “It is free at the point of need”.

The sad thing is that for the money spent; if properly managed, we truly would have the finest service in the world, but unless we have honest criticism and debate we will continue wasting 40% to 50% of all the money spent.

The only people who truly get it entirely for free; are illegal’s, immigrants and the families of these immigrants who have never made a contribution.

JONNY

Stuff happens during the silly season.
Funny unimportant stuff like one Dan Hannan. A Veritable Legend in his own Lunchtime is our Dan.
And an MEP to boot! Wow!
And when Cameron duly flattens him, a plaintive moan is heard all around.
Cries of "Oh what a Bully" fill the air.
(Though maybe not yet quite as bullying as Thatcher or Brown)
Well done David, I say.
I'd like to kick the garrulous lad in the bottom myself.

Mike

No country has the perfect health system but possibly Australia or France might come close to the best thats on offer around the world. The American system has its flaws just as the NHS but to swap one imperfect system for the other is a waste, it won't improve matters and its unjust to one or more sections of society. We have to try and curb the excess's of the free market as thats unfair whilst at the same time squash the wasteful and inefficient mechanisms of socialism. It might be better if both Brown and Cameron spent a bit more effort cutting waste from the NHS rather than blindly supporting it due to this on going controversy. Obama has I believe made two very big mistakes over his health care reforms. Firstly its the worst possible time economically to be looking at wholesale expensive reform of a system that does by and large work resonably well. It may not provide health care for illegals in the country but you can ask the question, why should it, and as far as low income Americans there is some safety net for those unable to afford treatment. The second point is, does anyone have the facts or truth over what changes Obama is intending. Since before he was elected, "change" was his mantra but no one then or even now really knows what he wants to change to. There are rumours about cutting care for the elderly or very young but so far Obamas camp is saying very little other than the "change" word. Even many of his erstwhile supporters have retreated into their homes unwilling to campaign for him over these "changes" so it does beg the question, why were so many Democrat voters brainwashed in the same way Blair sold snake oil in the UK. The elderly whether in America or Britain naturally feel betrayed when a system they grew up with and contributed tens of thousands into, is suddenly under threat at the very moment they might need help. In this regard, American pensioners seem to have a lot more guts to make their case compared to passive UK pensioners that just put up with it. Good luck to American pensioners, I hope you get to the truth by your demonstrations and direct action and don't let the politicians off the hook.

Derek

Mark Steyn, a Canadian living in New Hampshire who sounds like an Englishman, used to write pretty regularly for the Spectator but, for no reason which the sainted editor has felt able to give its subscribers, suddenly disappeared from its pages a while back (has it been a couple of years or morenow?) and is missed by those who enjoyed his feisty style, puns an' all.

Anyhow, apart from the accusation by by Martin Amis in one of the essays in his book "The Second Plane" that his prose style is no good (basically, too many puns), he thrives elsewhere, while no replacement has yet been found for him in the Spectator.

Today, in the National Review, he entered the lists in the debate between the US and the British health service and, inter alia, made the following comment:

" I had an elderly British visitor this month who’s had a recurring problem with her left hand. At one point it swelled up alarmingly and so we took her to the emergency room. They did a CT scan, X-rays, blood samples, the works. In two hours at a small, rural, undistinguished, no-frills hospital in northern New Hampshire, this lady got more tests than she’s had in the last decade in Britain — even though she goes to see her doctor once a month. He listens sympathetically, tells her old age often involves adjusting to the loss of mobility, and then advises her to take the British version of Tylenol and rest up. Anything else would use up those valuable resources. So, in two hours in New Hampshire, she got tested and diagnosed (with gout) and prescribed something to deal with it. It’s the difference between health “care” (i.e., going to the doctor’s every month to no purpose) and health treatment — and on the latter America is the best in the world".

Typical? I fear so.

Verity

Rene C Moyer writes, "Now, for the many Britons here rubbishing the NHS I would simply say: pay up and shut up." Matron!

Jonny, "a legend in his own lunchtime" ... it's good to see the evergreens being hauled out for an airing every decade or so.

Verity

David 3:20, referring to a comment that illegals and legal immigrants who have yet to make a single contribution to the NHS expect free treatment, writes: "Your lack of basic human decency is disturbing."

Well, David, anything that disturbs you can only be all to the good. BTW, who appointed you the arbiter of "human decency", given the quality of your dreary, predictable, torturous posts?

David Bouvier

Rene C Moya: "The result? Medical costs are THE SINGLE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR TO PERSONAL BANKRUPTCY IN THE UNITED STATES"

This is just another leftie factoid usually shouted without proper reference checking.

The study you are quoting (probably via a headline) is politically motivated and has be thoroughly debunked. What it actually says if I recall is that medical debts are common amongst the bankrupt.

Why? Because you can't repo a hip implant. Medical costs are hard to recover and one of the ones people choose to not pay when on the way to bankrupcy.

tilly williams

I have read the transcript of Daniel Hannan on Fox News and I cannot see what he is being unpatriotic about some people have a good veiw of the NHS and some have a bad view depends what experience you have had. It also depends to what end of the country you are too if you are in the south southe east and east you may experience problems. I have been going to hospital for years and I have a lost of time for them but since Labour has been in they have ripped the heart and soul out of the hospitals with their targets wanting to know if I am black asian or what. what difference does that make. NHS does need reform all the managers quangos targets for starters should be done away with. also this difference with scotland wales ireland they should have the same NHS as we have in England but it seems all their people can have free prescriptions free carparking and drugs that are denied us in England we should also get rid of the quango NICE. we should have all our own nurses not some of the foreign ones who I have found to be sloppy and do not even check the medication they are giving to you. the form filling about the food the doctor is he ok etc then the nurse is she ok all in one day then maybe a couple of days later they are back again all this is a waste of money and should be stopped. I have had a doctor from Germany telling me about the conveyor belt system where patients are only given limited amount of time before the next one and she herself said it was not right. I am lucky I have a doctor that takes no notice of targets

David Ossitt

David
August 15th, 2009 3:20am

"free, for immigrants who have never paid a penny."

"Aww, are those nasty people with brown skins getting healthcare? When they should be dying instead, eh?"

"Your lack of basic human decency is disturbing."

You snide cretinous wretch.

Verity was merely pointing out to J Elliot; that far from getting his medical care at a ‘cost of nothing’, he had in fact paid all his life, and had at the same time, help pay for all of those immigrants, who can arrive, be treated, and so get it for free.

But you saw this as an opportunity to play the nasty race card; well shame on you, it is people like you who want to stifle honest debate that drive some into the hands of the BNP.

To reprimand and accuse Verity; in your words “Your lack of basic human decency is disturbing” on the basis of her comment to J Elliot, shows the thought patterns of a sloppy juvenile mind.

Apologise.

Verity

David and Percy are our new little trollettes! So eager! So naive! You get into this pen, boys, and you're dancing with wolves. There's no quarter given round here.

THX1138

David O sorry to nit pick but even illegal immigrants pay tax, hard to avoid VAT and other indirect taxation.

David Ossitt

THX1138.

Nice to here from you; and as is usual you are correct, but you are as you say nit picking.

TomTom

David O sorry to nit pick but even illegal immigrants pay tax, hard to avoid VAT and other indirect taxation.

Not so. VAT is not levied on food or children's clothing and I doubt Oxfam shops charge VAT or huge areas of the market economy bother to collect it.

Rather get sick abroad

re immigrants and NHS

This immigrant myself have paid £30,600 towards the NHS in 18 years of UK taxation. For which I had 3 prescriptions. 1 ultrasound and 1 X-ray, both as outpatient. Twice I saved myself from unnecessary NHS ops by going private. When forming an opinion about the NHS, ask yourself the question: compared with what?

In today's Telegraph: 30,000 people died of hospital infections between 2004 and 2008. Could this massacre have been avoided? Yes, it could.

About immigrants: due to my parents funding my undergrad and postgrad science degrees I can pick and choose where I want to live, as American lawyers say: with brain or money you are most welcome in the US. Now, we don't want to go into 'but what about immigrants without science degrees' argument because I can mention quite a few illegal UK citizens living in the US waiting for an amnesty.

Back to the NHS: if science and technology worked the same way as the NHS, you wouldn't have a computer to write your comments on. Not in a million years.

Joe Drager

Skip Waterhouse

If you pay a helathcare premium of $1500.00 a month, I would imagine you are housed in a mental istitution. If not, you should be.

Verity

Rather Get Sick Abroad - Thanks for an interesting and incisive post.

To your final point, however, I lived in the US for a number of years and I never encountered a single British illegal immigrant. They were all working, and you can't get a job without a Social Security Number and you can't get a Social Security Number without a birth certificate or a Green Card.

You also cannot get in to the United States without a visa at the port of entry, and when your visa is up, if you haven't left the country, they go looking for you.

I would not be possible, by the furthest stretch of the imagination, for a Brit to melt into the background the way it is for Hispanic illegals, who are sheltered by their own people and live, in any event, in discrete communities - and who are also the norm. A British accent is not the norm. That person would be way too noticeable.

(Before everyone jumps on me, I do not mean that Mexican Americans born in the United States, or naturalised Mexicans or Mexican nationals on professional visas do not live in swanky suburbs. They do, as Hysteria will attest. But you are speaking of illegals.)

THX1138

"You also cannot get in to the United States without a visa at the port of entry"

Aren't I being a pedant at the moment but I just did get into the US without a visa under the visa waver programme.

Back in the day I spent a couple of months living in mates & relatives spare rooms in Santa Monica & Palm Beech in Florida and found cash in hand work, working in kitchens and valet parking pretty easily (I worked valet parking at a gay night club in Palm Beach probably the most fun job I ever had) and I met many Brits working illegally especially in Santa Monica, agreed this was before 9/11.

David O as LDN seems to awash with Australian illegal workers only fair as Brits make up the highest proportion of Illegal immigrants in Oz lets hope we punish them with a sounds thrashing at The Oval .