[QUOTE="Beefy, post: 10690311, member:
The NHS IS a political football.
When you have one party set on improving it and maintaining it for future generations, and another set on undermining it, in preparation for privatisation, how can it not be political?
We already have families having to make daily decisions as to what they can or cannot afford to spend money on.
We already have reports of children going to school without having breakfast.
We have parents going without meals, in order to feed their children.
We have people, young and old, having to decide between heating or eating, during the winter months.
The way the NHS is being "managed" by Hunt, there is, IMO, every likelihood that our grandchildren will be faced with the same dilemma our grandparents had, pre-NHS - can they afford to pay for medical care.[/QUOTE]
There probably aren't many, if any, people on this forum who can remember what life was like before the NHS, when every visit to the doctor had to be paid for, so many people literally couldn't afford medical care unless they "went on the panel", which was a humiliating experience by all accounts. I've no idea what the full cost of a 10 minute GP consultation would be nowadays, let alone any kind of hospital visit, but you would definitely have to make lifestyle decisions to afford it. Even if, as is likely, the whole business was insurance-based, the monthly premiums would be far higher than we currently pay through taxation and National Insurance.
Lest we forget, the National Health Service was brought into being by the post-war Labour government, against Conservative opposition. The Tories have never, from the very beginning, bought into the idea of a healthcare system free at the point of need. That isn't making the NHS a political football, that's historical fact.
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