They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury.
Er, hello? Are you implying that the NHS is free? By my very rough, back of the envelope calculations, every taxpayer in the UK pays an average of £3200 per annum for the NHS. I can get the very highest level of private insurance cover for about a sixth of that. Chuck in the same again for paying directly for primary health care visits to the GP and prescriptions, and the average taxpayer is paying about 3 times as much as I should for health care. Now, I know that I can't really generalise like I have, but really, how does it make sense to pay £3200 for £1300's worth of service and then still fucking claim to like it because you see it as "free". (And would that I, personally, was only paying £3200 into this cuntish system. I pay a lot more than £3200 in, but I reckon I still only get about £600's worth out of it.)
For fuck's sake, by all means, defend this shitty system, it is your right to hold that opinion, but please just be fucking honest about the costs.
9 comments:
"I can get the very highest level of private insurance cover for about a sixth of [£3200]". Errm, no you can't. You can get cheap private health insurance in this country because the health sector is largely paid for from taxes (they don't need to build A&e units, for example). And try and get even modest BUPA cover cheaply when you're over the age of 60... I agree with you that honesty is important, but honesty is not the same as gross over-simplification.
I don't know too many health insurers who actually build their own A&E units anywhere in the world, Ben. That's a very curious line to take.
The basic problem is this: everybody in this country is paying as though they are a 60+ high-risk patient and they're looking for platinum cover.
But they aren't all 60+ high-risk patients looking for platinum cover. I'm quite well aware that the health insurance is "cheap" because of the NHS, but I would happily pay twice as much as I do for my health insurance and not have the NHS because I (and most other people in this country) would be quids in.
The hospitals, the doctors, the services could all continue unchanged, but change the payment model. You will be amazed at how quickly things a) become better and b) become cheaper - for everyone.
The Independant ? whoo-ee - like they can do accurate reportage?
They should have a sticky link on their front page for
"The Best 10! - stupid, inaccurate stories we've published this week"
In principal as we all agree I think... - the NHS is a fine thing - in practice, at the moment - it's a whole different game.
The leaden hand of the miserably incompetent bureaucrats who've inveigled themselves into every level of the system is destroying it. Pretty much like the rest of government it's all about "process" and fuck all about actual delivery.
The NHS is huge and common sense tells you it's not going to be perfect - not fixing the broken bits and braying about how wunnerful it is and how evil the yank system is - "emotive bollocks" is pretty mild.
I've posted this elsewhere but I like the meme and I'm going to bore folk with it:
Stafford NHS Trust alone have by their own admission prematurely ended more British lives than Iraqui Insurgents, Al Quaeda, and the Taliban - yet I don't see the SAS sliding down ropes from a helicopter into the admin offices to sort them out. Shameful and wrong.
"others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life."
Sounds a bit fishy. MMR, flu and cervical cancer immunisations are all given to children for free under medicare. So what are they talking about?
Obo,
Until about 10 years ago I was employed in a fairly senior role by various IT companies and had enjoyed private health cover (either BUPA or PPP). In my mid fifties I discovered that the company I was working for had become total shite and decided to go freelance. During my time with the company I had seen various consultants privately in connection with back and hearing problems. When I left the company in 1998 PPP wrote to me offering continuation of cover for a monthly premium of £380 month proving my back and hearing problems were excluded. I declined as I couldn't afford it at the time. While I haven't had any recurrence of these problems since I have had others and have been grateful for NHS care. I realise that my situation is different to yours because of my age and medical history, but don't you think you are being a little selfish in proposing a totally private healthcare system without the thinking of necessary safeguards for people that have paid into the state ponzi scheme all their lives.
@Sean O'Hare: I really don't have a problem with the state looking after the very poorest, I accept that pragmatically such health care would have to take place. I also accept that people who have paid into the Ponzi scheme would have to have some sort of accommodation made for them, I am one of those people after all!
But really, we can't carry on like this. It's not sustainable.
The NHS is justified like this...
Noone can afford healthcare therefore everyone else should pay.
You are right to call it a ponzi scheme.
Ill-Heath is personal not collective. Therefore coerced-collectivised treatment will never be good.
The sad truth is, as I see it, that not paying £3200 a year for the NHS in tax means paying £3200 a year for something else, something which you would probably also resent paying for, like pointless wars in far-off countries (to give a personal example) or yet another raft of quangoes that produce precisely nothing. It is very unlikely to mean paying £3200 a year less tax.
@Bayard: yep, you're quite correct. But one problem at a time, eh? :o)
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