Off Topic The Politics Thread

Can I just add a few things to the NHS discussion.......

My late Father worked in Hammersmith Hospital 40 years ago and even back then he said the amount of waste was eye popping...... It's been hemorrhaging money for donkey's years, it's basically a black hole and no matter how much money is thrown at it, it will never be enough.........

So what's the solution........ well here if you can afford it you have Medical Insurance, ours costs roughly €3300 per year for Mrs Trammers and myself. If you need treatment you pay an excess and the Insurance pays the rest....... I had a colonoscopy recently, cost was €1600, I paid the first €75.

Now with the stress fracture of my foot, I paid €50 to visit the GP, €30 for Blood Tests, €130 for an xray, plus €70 for various perscriptions. I can claim €20 from my Insurance for each cost.

Our Health System is cost based, a visit to A&E €100 for instance, however the poorest/oldest in society have what's called a Medical Card and entitles them to free treatment and they pay a nominal €2.50 for their perscriptions.......

Maybe this is the sort of thing that the UK should consider, maybe a nominal £5 per GP visit, also some payment towards A&E visits...... No doubt it would be politically unpopular, but if costs were levied some of the cash shortfall would be eliminated........

 

Current NHS outcomes and satisfaction statistics are extremely low, why is that? Because the system doesn't work or simply because it's underfunded? Blair's Labour government funded it properly and it worked.

Noam Chomsky:

“ That’s the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital. ”

 

I will keep looking at the fortune made from the privatisation of PPI supply, privatisation of test kit provision, the sell off of the Oxford Vaccine Centre.

And you all keep saying how good it has all been, with private enterprise being involved.


By degrading our services over the last 10 years, we can show that it is not fit for purpose, so we can sell it off... and then it will be much better (for the rich).


My daughter had a very serious and very painful but not life threatening gynecology condition...she had 3 interventions including a GA operation within 10 days. ( this happened last month)

A friend of mine in North Carolina, USA had something similar a year ago... she is rich ...her medical insurance paid out $70,000 and took 3 months.

I will fight to my last breath for the nhs

 

I am so glad you can afford this Trammers...

But with cost of living going through the roof, feeding our kids a priority...I would probably walk on my stress fracture.. and hope it would " go away'... same with that funny wart thing on my arm...and the lump in my groin

 

Sorry Beth but that's a poor answer from you......... We've worked hard all our working lives, paid mortgage interest at 17%, not had holidays for years, been poorly paid got by by buying cheap food and using leftovers....... this cost of living crisis is not unique now, we've been there in the past, do you remember inflation at 14% in the late 70's early 80's? The problem is that a lot of today's generation have never been in this sort of situation and are too use to having everything new and now, nor do a lot of the younger generation know how to cook or to buy cheap items to bulk cook.......

Yes it's tough now for many, but like us they'll get through it and maybe this is a good reality check for them....... Oh and I certainly wouldn't neglect my health like you advocated, that's just ridiculous.......

 

How much did your daughters treatment actually cost Beth? I know it didn’t cost her anything directly, but of course the treatment cost something. I don’t know how you would find that out (well I do, because that kind of thing is my job, but it’s not easy). Your friend in the US didn’t pay $70k, her insurance paid this. The cost is transparent. There is a cap on all insurance schemes, an excess over which you don’t pay, as Trammers explained. If your daughter got faster treatment that could well be a bit of luck, as a scientist you well know that that’s not an evidence based argument, we need to compare a lot more cases.

Free at the point of access doesn’t mean ‘free’. The fact remains that outcomes in this country are not as good in many areas as in other, comparable countries, yet many people will fight to the death to maintain the current system. I just don’t get attaching a moral and ideological sense of superiority to an economic and administrative choice. A system which provides better outcomes to the whole population, where the rich still subsidise the poor, without any of this ‘ownership’ bollocks would be fine by me. And most state regulated Western European insurance based not for profit systems are better, in terms of outcomes.

 

And a poor answer from you too Trammers.

What if the £200 hyke in energy charges took you from being able to cope to not being able to cope...would you feed your kids or would you go to hospital to have a strange growth on your arm investigated.

I would feed my kids, I am sure you would too.


That's what I am talking about.

Yes...the nhs needs to be " cleaned up"..
Yes...we need to educate our youngsters to not want everything now, new and the most advanced.

I agree with all that..


But we must fight against selling off our national assets to chancers and money makers

 

As some of you know...when I was working I ran a diagnostic laboratory for testing for rare neurological diseases.
We were paid by the NHS for every test we did. The cost was calculated each year ...we made a very small profit on each test ( about 5-10%) which we put back into researching improvements in the tests.

A year before I left we were challenged by a company saying we had transgressed a patent they had just taken out ( it was rubbish...I had invented the bloody test, over 20 years before).
The NHS had not the money or the desire to fight.
I walked away. The test cost has now risen from £50 to over £500.
Far less tests are now ordered, more people are going undiagnosed, more people are dying.


This is happening all over the nhs.

Perhaps it explains my point of view.
B
B@@@@@ds

 

Depends if that person feeds their kids on takeaways or not........ Maybe it's time they went and bought cheap vegetables, 19p for a packet of potatoes, carrots, and other things that are advertised, cheap cuts of meat, mincemeat etc and made batches of bolongnase, or curries or stews in bulk to feed the family........ time to be economical and have a budget......

Like I said Beth it ain't easy but this is not unique, we've been in this situation before........

Oh and I don't feel either privlidged or guilty for having health insurance, it's a necessity here and we budget to afford it.......

 

You both make my point perfectly.

 

Do you actually have a point?

 

That is not indicated by the huge rise in food banks in the UK over the last 5 years

 

There are people here turning down fresh food from food banks because they can't afford the cost of the energy it takes to prepare it.

 

Yes, I made it earlier, which you and Beth validated.
Did you miss it?

 

I saw what you posted, but there didn't seem to be a point to it.

What's your solution?

 

Interesting discussion about healthcare on here. As I've said on here before, I had a pretty serious neurological condition back in 2007 (as you'd know more Beth, a massive, 5ish cm colloid cyst of the third ventricle)...I had surgery and survived and it didn't cost me a penny. I have read stories of other people, in the US, who not only have to deal with the medical condition, but then also the crippling financial burden afterwards. I'll always be a fan of the NHS and the service it provides...I owe it my life.

I've also seen another system, here in France. The system here is semi-private, but nowhere near the price of the US. For my family of four, we pay approx €30 a month for a mutuelle (insurance). You have to pay for GP appointments, prescription charges and other tests, and the prices differ depending on the level of service, and you are reimbursed a set fee for each procedure. Sometimes you are reimbursed 100%, but if you go for a very expensive service you might only be reimbursed 60/70/80% of the price. Also, if you are on a very low income, or have a serious and long-term illness, you get healthcare for free.

*Edit...worth noting...the insurance companies aren't allowed, by law, to ask if you have any previous medical conditions.

I have had my shoulder popped back into place three times, and subsequently surgery to put some pins in there to hold the bone in place. My mutuelle covered it all, and I didn't have to pay a cent.

It seems a good system, that recognises the need for healthcare services to be paid for, but doesn't place an unduly heavy burden on those who can't afford it, or those who are seriously ill.

The question is though, what Government would be brave enough to committ political suicide and take away universal free healthcare, and how else could it be adapted?

 

An open and frank discussion on the state of the NHS and care sector, without resorting to politics of envy and class warfare, with a view to radically reform both.
Just throwing money at the problem whilst howling at the moon about the evil Tories doesn't seem to me to be the way forward.

 

'Politics of envy'

'Class warfare'

'Throwing money at the problem'

Every Tory cliché covered there, Col.

 

Ok from a Labour point of view how would you resolve the issues?

 

Unfortunately politics and class do come into it in my humble opinion. Politics because it really should be a cross party solution not some meaningless lie pasted across a bus. Class because lower class and working class folk of the world are struggling to even get by week to week, nevermind another outlay for health, so they need a service that is free at the point of delivery.