The successive Tory governments of the last 14 years are the sole reason the NHS is in crisis. People are living longer yes, but healthier safer lives, the demand is not the issue. The destruction of this incredible socialist institution is deliberate, it is no coincidence that these former corporate capitalists, who have business relationships with pharmaceutical and private healthcare companies, are sitting on their hands and not solving the staffing and resourcing issues, as this is their plan. Keep repeating the lie that the model does not work (it does, it did), and keep suggesting an alternative that will just coincidentally fill up their and their business friends pockets. The other motivation is ideological, that’s why they keep saying that we need to be less ideological (a tactic), because the NHS has proven for 70+ years that socialism works, it is the most successful example of the principle, and they can’t abide it. Once we are on tiers of service then it will be just like eye care, social care, dental care, where you only get the service you can afford and go without if you lack the means.
More people will be excluded as healthcare prices go up, as they will. Take US healthcare for example, the best in the world if you can afford it, where it is $15k to have a kidney stone removed and over $100 for a single asthma inhaler, leading to many non insured persons going without, but this model makes rich people richer and that’s why politicians lobby for it to continue and resist any change to it. Rich people is them, rich people is their peer group.
Most people don’t understand privatisation and what it means long term, though we are starting to realise now with the rivers being full of crap, the rise of homelessness to record levels, food banks in every town, and social care being unaffordable for millions. In a private market there are always people who are excluded by price, so in healthcare if you have a private market and you don’t want exclusions (that famous term of Free at the Point of Use) that requires massive subsidies. The government would have to cover the differential between rising prices and the financial means of the demand from consumers. This is what happened to social care, it used to cost X through taxation, now it costs X + the unnecessary increase in costs by profiteering pharma + an individual profit for each owner of each facility. If it shouldn’t exclude anyone then it shouldn’t be private, because private indicates choice based items, not needs or rights concerning items that cannot be done without. An iPhone would be the perfect example of this, there are alternatives even though the person would feel a certain way about having to accept them, but this is not a life or death item, having no iPhone is a fine way to exist.
Let us imagine an NHS with no trusts, no CEOs, no vested interests, one where a computer system is available and supported by a central body, where resources are sourced and provided by a central body, with only minimal local management of these departments as would be necessary. Let us further imagine that each person was happy to pay for healthcare that they didn’t use but knew would be available if they needed it. Sounds like an insurance plan now doesn’t it? That’s exactly the point, it already was the thing before privatisation that it is now after privatisation, but it was better and cheaper then, and everyone could have it. Think on that…
I’ll add: my neighbour took a stroke and his pal called an ambulance… 10 hours he was told… 10 fucking hours!!! If you voted Tory then you did that, you are responsible.
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