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Privatising the NHS...

Thoughts?

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Just another sign our country is heading a dark road. Soon we will be a poor man's America.
Reply 2
This will be the final snapping point before civil war.

After Brexit, Scottish independence, the snooper's charter, they will have to kill us in the streets.
Should be done

Original post by Scottish Person
Just another sign our country is heading a dark road. Soon we will be a poor man's America.


Not sure what signs you're talking of, oh, you're one of those who actually believe it is being privatised and obviously so
Original post by Jammy Duel
Should be done



Not sure what signs you're talking of, oh, you're one of those who actually believe it is being privatised and obviously so


Why should it?
Original post by bex.anne
Thoughts?


Describe what you mean by a privatised NHS and I will tell you what I think of it.
Reply 6
I don't understand why it's being privatized, because I don't see how paying a company to do something is cheaper than doing it directly. If someone explained how this saved money maybe I'd understand.
Original post by Scorpio99
I don't understand why it's being privatized, because I don't see how paying a company to do something is cheaper than doing it directly. If someone explained how this saved money maybe I'd understand.


You are the customer, not the government. The current structure is you pay the government via taxation, and then they either directly fund the procedures or act as a middle man to procure the service.

And it saves money, at least on paper, because if there is one thing the public sector is well known for it's waste.

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Original post by Jammy Duel
You are the customer, not the government. The current structure is you pay the government via taxation, and then they either directly fund the procedures or act as a middle man to procure the service.

And it saves money, at least on paper, because if there is one thing the public sector is well known for it's waste.

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Would you be comfortable with the idea of our healthcare being subsequently foreign owned if it was privatized?
Original post by Jammy Duel
Should be done


They tried it (quietly) in Nottingham. It didn't work. The government invited bidderers to tend for the delivery of x healthcare. When the demand turned out to be x+y and as a result the private provider handed back the contract becau5there was no profit in it. The only solution would be for the government to derisk such ventures by being a payee of last resort and as we have seen countless times in the past, private companies are excellent at stitching up the government such that the privatised cost is vastly in excess of the public cost.

I don't understand why public run enterprises are blasted as being so inefficient because in my experience private equivalenta offer a worse service at a higher price whilst skimming a massive profit for themselves. Just look at the trains. Never before did the government spend so much on the railways and they are still rubbish.
Original post by ByEeek
They tried it (quietly) in Nottingham. It didn't work. The government invited bidderers to tend for the delivery of x healthcare. When the demand turned out to be x+y and as a result the private provider handed back the contract becau5there was no profit in it. The only solution would be for the government to derisk such ventures by being a payee of last resort and as we have seen countless times in the past, private companies are excellent at stitching up the government such that the privatised cost is vastly in excess of the public cost.

I don't understand why public run enterprises are blasted as being so inefficient because in my experience private equivalenta offer a worse service at a higher price whilst skimming a massive profit for themselves. Just look at the trains. Never before did the government spend so much on the railways and they are still rubbish.


It was Huntingdon not Nottingham and the reasons for failure were somewhat different.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-hospital-s-unsustainable-privatisation-deal-collapses-amid-concerns-over-poor-care-9967479.html
Contrary to propaganda from people of certain political ideologies, the NHS is one of the best and most efficient healthcare services in the developed world, far better than other countries with a lot more private involvement in their health services. We absolutely don't want our entire health service to be run by private companies who only care about profit.
Reply 12
Original post by RF_PineMarten
Contrary to propaganda from people of certain political ideologies, the NHS is one of the best and most efficient healthcare services in the developed world, far better than other countries with a lot more private involvement in their health services. We absolutely don't want our entire health service to be run by private companies who only care about profit.


Why not? I assume it's not going to be good for a private company's profits to just have everyone die on them all the time.
Original post by Jammy Duel
You are the customer, not the government. The current structure is you pay the government via taxation, and then they either directly fund the procedures or act as a middle man to procure the service.

And it saves money, at least on paper, because if there is one thing the public sector is well known for it's waste.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Ahahahahaha your joking right? Do you have any idea how expensive it could potentially become.

Take America for example: the leading cause of Bankruptcy is not having Health insurance. Because you get in an accident, get treated and can't afford it.

A family member of mine recently had a baby in America... $80 000 just to have the baby.

What about those who can't afford this? Are you for millions of people suffering and dying as a result? The mind of a murderer...
Original post by Jammy Duel
You are the customer, not the government. The current structure is you pay the government via taxation, and then they either directly fund the procedures or act as a middle man to procure the service.

And it saves money, at least on paper, because if there is one thing the public sector is well known for it's waste.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Waste? Are you trying to imply that many end up paying for this service and don't use it so it's a waste?

So there is huge debates because of how underfunded the NHS is and you are trying to say that people are wasting?
Original post by BlushChops
Would you be comfortable with the idea of our healthcare being subsequently foreign owned if it was privatized?


Yes

Original post by ByEeek
They tried it (quietly) in Nottingham. It didn't work. The government invited bidderers to tend for the delivery of x healthcare. When the demand turned out to be x+y and as a result the private provider handed back the contract becau5there was no profit in it. The only solution would be for the government to derisk such ventures by being a payee of last resort and as we have seen countless times in the past, private companies are excellent at stitching up the government such that the privatised cost is vastly in excess of the public cost.

I don't understand why public run enterprises are blasted as being so inefficient because in my experience private equivalenta offer a worse service at a higher price whilst skimming a massive profit for themselves. Just look at the trains. Never before did the government spend so much on the railways and they are still rubbish.


They tried it not so quietly 6 years ago at Hinchingbrooke and was actually very successful with customer satisfaction up, deficit significantly down (it's now gone by by more than an order of magnitude), and the hospital itself being much improved. You'll also find that there is a tendency for staff to go "nope, we're off" on ideological grounds where they can.

And it's funny you talk of rail subsidies, because 120% of the rail subsidies go to, drum roll please :yikes: the government! In 2014-15 the government put £3.5bn into the rail network, £4.2bn was given to network rail (given to itself) and gave another £800m to the devolved parliaments and even the former union bosses accept that the "privatisation" of the rail network has been a good thing

Original post by RF_PineMarten
Contrary to propaganda from people of certain political ideologies, the NHS is one of the best and most efficient healthcare services in the developed world, far better than other countries with a lot more private involvement in their health services. We absolutely don't want our entire health service to be run by private companies who only care about profit.


You say contrary to propaganda, and then spread the propaganda :confused:

There was this nice little piece in yesterday's Telegraph (which is sub only content so you probably can't read it, and I'm one of the weird people who still reads print papers so can't copy the relevant bits either) by Dr Kristian Niemietz, Head of Health and Welfare at the IEA. To compress a few paragraphs of it down into a single sentence: "Basically the only people who say the NHS is the envy of the world are the Commonwealth Fund, who do not actually look at outcomes" in other words, to make the NHS look amazing you have to ignore what it's supposed to be doing. All you need to do to see this is look at the OECD stats. We're a fair bit behind OECD averages on cancer survival, well behind on hospital beds (more on hospitals later), doctors, we discharge very quickly after childbirth, low pharma spending. We also lag behind the rest of Northern and Western Europe on life expectancy.

As for hospitals we don't actually spend less than anybody else, most developed countries spend about 4% of GDP on hospitals. The piece makes an analogy of health spending to eating: all people need bread and water to survive, but a rich man doesn't buy more bread and water, they go out to a restaurant and drink wine. Here the bread and butter is the hospitals, the restaurant is stuff like chickenpox vaccines, for instance; when more is spent overall it doesn't manifest as that much more in the core services, it manifests as extra things on the top, so this funding crisis is hospitals clearly isn't a funding crisis, it's people going to A&E when they shouldn't (it is) and/or the hospitals spending the money badly (also true)

Original post by NotANerd!
Ahahahahaha your joking right? Do you have any idea how expensive it could potentially become.

Take America for example: the leading cause of Bankruptcy is not having Health insurance. Because you get in an accident, get treated and can't afford it.

A family member of mine recently had a baby in America... $80 000 just to have the baby.

What about those who can't afford this? Are you for millions of people suffering and dying as a result? The mind of a murderer...


Utilising the normal false dichotomy of "NHS or USA" and completely ignoring the fact that there are other systems out there. The NHS is far from the poster child of single payer healthcare, Singapore on the other hand is DEFINITELY the poster child of "privatised" healthcare with one of, if not the best healthcare system in the world and costing only 3.9% of GDP thanks to the bane of leftist existence: a focus on personal responsibility. A fairly comprehensive overview can be found here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/expat-health/8831080/Expat-guide-to-Singapore-health-care.html

It's not exactly a privatised system, but it is very far from fully nationalised.

Original post by NotANerd!
Waste? Are you trying to imply that many end up paying for this service and don't use it so it's a waste?

So there is huge debates because of how underfunded the NHS is and you are trying to say that people are wasting?


See two block above, the core elements of the NHS are not underfunded by any stretch of the imagination, they're overspent and overused.
Original post by bex.anne
Thoughts?


Yes definitely.

People are really mistaken about state healthcare. When I had an ear infection I had four unnecessary weeks of pain because they didn't properly diagnose it four times in the NHS.

In America Omaha made Obamacare and it was such a failure that it's cheaper for most people to go direct rather than through Obamacare.

In the U.S. you pay several hundred dollar a year insurance for first class service.

People think that the NHS is free but those same people often pay thousands of pounds in taxes indirectly for it.

I don't need that state for force me to buy from one source. I'm perfectly capable of making my own arrangements.


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Reply 17
Privatizing the NHS is mostly propaganda and even though it is an issue it isn't as severe as it is made out to be. Everyone knows deep down that most problems concerning the NHS are due to the last Labour government who over spent and bankrupted the country.
Original post by Jammy Duel
"Basically the only people who say the NHS is the envy of the world are the Commonwealth Fund, who do not actually look at outcomes" in other words, to make the NHS look amazing you have to ignore what it's supposed to be doing. All you need to do to see this is look at the OECD stats. We're a fair bit behind OECD averages on cancer survival, well behind on hospital beds (more on hospitals later), doctors, we discharge very quickly after childbirth, low pharma spending. We also lag behind the rest of Northern and Western Europe on life expectancy.


I didn't say the NHS was perfect, just that it's a lot better a system than certain people make it out to be. Some people go on about it like it's a really inefficient system, yet lots of western countries with much more private involvement in the health service perform worse.

And is life expectancy something you can really pin on the NHS? Lots of lifestyle factors come into play there which the NHS can't do that much about. Obesity related illnesses for example - doctors can't stop people eating themselves into an early grave.

I am skeptical of how a healthcare system in a completely different small country on the other side of the world with a different population and economy can be copied in a western country with a population about 12 times the size. The article does mention a lot of young people in Singapore, which makes me wonder how the age structure compares to the UK which does have an ageing population. It also mentions that high population density in a small area like in Singapore makes health planning easier - the UK has a lot of people living in rural areas which Singapore doesn't have.
Reply 19
Original post by Crb822
Privatizing the NHS is mostly propaganda and even though it is an issue it isn't as severe as it is made out to be. Everyone knows deep down that most problems concerning the NHS are due to the last Labour government who over spent and bankrupted the country.


I dont think you have any knowledge of how politics at all.

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