A healthy alternative?
Peter Hoskin 2:06pm
Martin Ivens writes a punchy article in today's Sunday Times, in which he castigates both the Government for wrecking the NHS and the Tories for not yet providing an alternative approach:
"Yes, nothing very much is happening any time soon in the good old NHS. People are still dying from cancer in greater numbers than in most civilised countries in Europe. Money is still being wasted from the great splurge on health presided over by Blair and Brown – spending has roared ahead. Productivity is still going south. It’s harder than ever to see a GP out of hours. True, a start has been made on allowing private contractors to provide services......In a garbled interview last week, Lansley gave the impression that taxpayer-funded spending on health would need to increase by a further £28 billion to 11% of GDP. The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, poured oil on troubled waters. A Tory administration would get value for money from the NHS and seek to reduce its burden. Yes, there’s gold at the end of the rainbow and the cheque is in the post.
If Lansley tells an audience of doctors and nurses that the Conservatives will no longer fiddle with the NHS like new Labour, he will get easy applause. Health workers are truly fed up with obtuse management and endless Whitehall directives. But after the clapping has died down he should ask that room whether the NHS should continue as it is...
...David Cameron, you present yourself as the future, the new politics. If you don’t offer the prime minister a challenge on health reform then another decade will be wasted. By not rocking the boat you think you will get more votes. Maybe. But you’ll be passing up a great opportunity and we will all be the losers."
This hits the Andrew Lansley nail on its head. Of course, it may be unrealistic for the Tories to flesh-out their health policies so far from a general election. But until they do so, people won't hear (or believe?) the little verbal-footnotes which say: "Don't worry, we will get more value for money from the NHS". Any indication of extra NHS spending will - rightly or wrongly - just seem like a pledge to repeat the disastrous approach of the past decade.
All the more reason, then, for the Shadow Health Secretary to decline further interviews...
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The Chocolate Orange Chameleon
March 2nd, 2008 3:55pm Report this commentThe NHS is a behemoth that was never necessary in the first place, except in the dreams of controlling socialists. Now, with the avalanche of new technologies, techniques and pharamceuticals, it is out of control Disband it. Dump it. Sell it on. Just get rid of it. However, keep NI contributions, but allow earners to nominate the health provider of their choice. Private healthcare providers will be only too delighted to be swamped with NI deductions and will compete with vigour among themselves for the custom of the contributors. As we know, that is how services improve: through vigorous and clever competition. OAPs and children and young people to age 22, not having had a chance to earn and make contributions, would continue to enjoy free healthcare. Foreigners who had not contributed to the sytem for a set minimum of years would not be eligible for their care to be paid for by NI. Foreigners entering Britain would be required to show sufficient funds for medical emergencies or be required to buy a policy out of a machine at the airport. British people who have been out of work for more than two years and haven't made contributions during that time would also be ineligible. The mainly ghastly NHS is the large employer in the EU, with 1.3m employees. It is currently being run by Alan Johnson whose last job, befor that of politicians, was postman. Before that, it was Patricia Hewitt who had been a "public service" limpet all her life. This whole mess needs to be privatised and let the private companies revamp it.
Puncheon
March 2nd, 2008 4:03pm Report this commentIf we have learned one thing from the last 50 years or so it is that whatever their other merits, politicians and civil servants are hopeless at the provision of goods and services. Why should health care, and the BBC for that matter, be any different. Can you imagine applying NHS principles to food - we all pay a fixed tax and then queue at the supermarket for 6 months or so, but once inside we can stash as much as we like into our trollies. Our blessed NHS is so bloody wonderful that no-one else in the whole wide world has copied us. Like everything elsy invented by the crazy,high-minded but stupid 1945-51 Labour Goverment it has adopted the wrong economic model. State sponsored health provision - a good idea since it's in everyone's interest to have a healthy population, but not provided by civil servants and NOT free at the point of use. The present model confuses welfare with health care. An insurance based madel is much better with any shortfall in individual payments made up by welfare payments. This is the model used successfully in Continental Europe and elsewhere. All the present system does is to turn us into a nation of ungrateful hypochondriacs and enrich the doctors.
The Chocolate Orange Chameleon
March 2nd, 2008 4:27pm Report this commentAnd also enriches, Puncheon, a vast tranche of unnecessary and kingdom-building "administrators".
TGF UKIP
March 2nd, 2008 5:12pm Report this commentTwo bang on posts from The Chocolate Orange and Puncheon. The chances of anything like this being taken up by the timorous, conviction-free, Social Democrat Tory Party is, though, unfortunately zero - Polly and Humphrys wouldn't like it. The best way to communicate the extent of NHS spending/waste is to point out that the cost amounts to £5,500 per household p.a. Has your household had your 55 grandsworth over the last ten years?
Max Kaye
March 2nd, 2008 5:51pm Report this commentThe NHS is a wasteful mess at half the price. It is irredeemable. Dismantling it is the only way forward.
David
March 2nd, 2008 7:15pm Report this comment"Disband it. Dump it. Sell it on. Just get rid of it." No party with that as a policy will win an election. 3rd rail politics.
The Chocolate Orange Chameleon
March 2nd, 2008 8:10pm Report this commentWell, obviously you don't announce it ahead of time. Did Tony Blair announce that he was going to allow millions of muslims into the country ahead of the polls? Did he announce that he was going to take Britain deeper into Europe for his own personal advantage? Did he mention that he was going to wreck education and tear into shreds our formerly cohesive civil society?
Bill Badger
March 3rd, 2008 6:06pm Report this commentNHS needs improvement of course. We need to stop wasting scarce resources on the self-inflicting drunks and junkies that flood every A&E every weekend for a start. But all you young, rich, healthy and opinionated who advocate dismantling the NHS want to be poor and ill in the USA, where problems are just as great as here. Health insurance is more expensive than NI contributions, and insurance companies have to cover their costs and profits before any medical costs are considered. Everyone should watch Michael Moore's film SICKO, before pontificating on private healthcare. Millions in America have no health care; in-patients who run our of cash or insurance are taxied out at night in their bedclothes and dumped in derelict zones of town, regardless of their state of health. There is no impartial treatment based on medical need - doctors only do what brings in the cash; and insurances limit your treatment options too. Malpractice is the eighth largest killer, ahead of lung cancer. So, many US healthcare providers are facing costly litigation and cannot hardly wait to snap up our hospitals, to steal our best staff and to rake in the cash for their fines. Thank god for the NHS - still the best principle in Healthcare anywhere in the world.
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