So what are peoples thoughts and any potential impact on yourself

[Jacob]

Delusional still Jacob. That pony you are on is still travelling left. Businesses feed off the NHS. Greedily. The waste is in ludicrous procurement costs because of this. We all pay.

Of course we all pay, and the NHS is not a business and does not make a profit. You are getting the idea.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Delusional still Jacob. That pony you are on is still travelling left. Businesses feed off the NHS. Greedily. The waste is in ludicrous procurement costs because of this. We all pay.

So what you're saying is that businesses are greedy. Profiteering, perhaps? Thanks. But I think we already knew that. So why is this somehow the fault of the NHS or the govt or the tax payer? I don't understand what point that you're trying to make, and I wonder even if your point is contrary to the one you intend to make?

 

[Jake]

What metric are you using ? Wishful thinking

In terms of expenditure per head and outcomes it's pretty good (it was excellent, world leading, 15 years ago). Now, it's just very underfunded after 15 years of Tories so the service has overall fallen behind competitors (reflecting the reduced level of spending).

 

[paulrbarnard]

So what you're saying is that businesses are greedy. Profiteering, perhaps? Thanks. But I think we already knew that. So why is this somehow the fault of the NHS or the govt or the tax payer? I don't understand what point that you're trying to make, and I wonder even if your point is contrary to the one you intend to make?

The point is a business that is measured by its bottom line would be getting much better deals from the suppliers. The issue is the NHS is enabling the gouging medical suppliers.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

https://www.william-russell.com/blog/health-insurance-usa-cost/

Has anyone on here ever taken a damaged car to a body-shop?
Have they had experience of how much the body-shop would charge the insurance company to fix the damage, and then a different, reduced cost, if you were to pay for the damage repair yourself?

That ought to be all the experience that you need to be able to understand explicitly that a Private insurance-based Health System would rocket the costs far, far more than the National Insurance charges that we all pay to have the NHS as a Public Service. In addition, there would be a proportion of people that would not pay for health insurance, which would then have the knock-on effect of a decrease in overall public health levels and therefore a reduction of employability rates amongst the population. Not exactly a coherent vision for growth, is it? Instead it is a vision for increasing the already considerable wealth of the already considerably wealthy and therefore of increasing wealth inequality further. (Just to be clear, I'm not against wealth, but I am against wealth inequality.)

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

The point is a business that is measured by its bottom line would be getting much better deals from the suppliers. The issue is the NHS is enabling the gouging medical suppliers.

And do you actually believe that an insurance-based health system wouldn't be performing similar gouging and possibly assisting the gouging to further increase, through exclusive deals, kick-backs and preferred suppliers?
Wow!

Perhaps you don't actually believe that, but just wanted to make a point... but whomever does believe that gouging would not continue, and possibly increase through a non NHS system, I do believe that is more delusional than anything else on here... (see private water firms and their behaviour)

 

[Jacob]

The point is a business that is measured by its bottom line would be getting much better deals from the suppliers. The issue is the NHS is enabling the gouging medical suppliers.

How would you suggest this should be better done?

 

[Jake]

https://www.william-russell.com/blog/health-insurance-usa-cost/

The bigger downside someone with pre-existing conditions used to face over there (and would face again if Trump was to win) is that no insurance may be available at all, or no insurance available at any affordable price, depending on your medical history and condition. If Trump wins, GOP intend to end 'Obamacare' completely - one of the key provisions of that is that insurers cannot deny cover for pre-existing conditions and they can't price on them either.

If that goes, someone with a serious pre-existing condition will be back to a situation where they are basically denied any medical access except for emergency medicine (unless they are very rich).

There are people on here who from what they have posted about their health conditions very clearly would be in that category if we changed to a pure insurance based system, and might want to think more carefully about what they wish for.

 

[Jacob]

https://www.william-russell.com/blog/health-insurance-usa-cost/

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/16/americans-medical-debt/

Arguably this is not only a health industry issue:
The "financialisation" of so much of what we have to do, has the effect of keeping us in debt for life, from inflated house-prices/mortgages/rents, downwards.
Echoes of the "indentured labour" system, which became the employers preferred option to simple slavery, as it obviated any life-time obligations of care, but kept people enslaved, still to some extent a feature of employment in the USA.

 

[paulrbarnard]

And do you actually believe that an insurance-based health system wouldn't be performing similar gouging and possibly assisting the gouging to further increase, through exclusive deals, kick-backs and preferred suppliers?
Wow!

Perhaps you don't actually believe that, but just wanted to make a point... but whomever does believe that gouging would not continue, and possibly increase through a non NHS system, I do believe that is more delusional than anything else on here... (see private water firms and their behaviour)

Completely different topic. Insurance company’s work deals with suppliers and health care providers which obfuscate the actual cost.
The point being made is simply that the NHS works on the principle there is a money tree and consequently works with poor fiscal responsibility. A ‘normal’ business is held accountable for what they spend on materials, supplies and resources. Opex spending is one of the primary measures of a well run business. The only measure that seems to be applied to the NHS is waiting lists

 

[paulrbarnard]

How would you suggest this should be better done?

Make them financially accountable. Make them work/justify investment in the same way a business does with real fiscal and delivery targets.
I’m not suggesting privatisation simply treat it in the same way a business would be treated by the markets.

 

[Sachakins]

If we want to be "fair" about the recent budget - dispassionate, and cold, non-partisan - "fair" analysis would lead to the following deduction:

Of the tax rises announced yesterday, despite the fact that they were "announced" by Labour, the taxation liability was put in place by the previous govt. The prior unfunded and known Tory govt spending included a promise to pay compensation for the Contaminated Blood Scandal to the tune of £12bn. That was unfunded, unbudgeted, but is required to be paid for through taxation. Over and above the known unfunded spending, there was also an unknown unfunded spending promise bill to the tune of over £20bn (see OBR report dated 30 Oct 24)(Tory has tried very hard to conflate these two separate and distinct obligations in the attempt to hoodwink the public into believing that there is only one £20bn unfunded, unbudgeted spending commitments - the known one.).

This £32bn portion of tax increases ought to be accrued to Tory and added to the £80bn figure already stated.

If they thought these were not sustainable, they're a new government, they could have stopped them, just like the struck down the rewanda bill. So whether are not they were Tory is irrelevant, they chose to implement them.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Completely different topic. Insurance company’s work deals with suppliers and health care providers which obfuscate the actual cost.
The point being made is simply that the NHS works on the principle there is a money tree and consequently works with poor fiscal responsibility. A ‘normal’ business is held accountable for what they spend on materials, supplies and resources. Opex spending is one of the primary measures of a well run business. The only measure that seems to be applied to the NHS is waiting lists

I think that's an over-simplification and doesn't really bear up to scrutiny - particularly when we know that many new treatments are not available on the NHS because they are "too expensive" and that the NHS does often wait until drug patents expire and they become "generic drugs" before the NHS is able to prescribe them.

The majority of the smart (unbiased) research and evidence concludes that the NHS costs less *overall* for the UK, despite notions to the contrary. It is also a national investment into labour (small l) which increases workforce availability - which is a fundamental key requirement of Capitalism.

The very notion that a private healthcare system wouldn't cost far more overall, plus restrict/prohibit access to the most needy, negatively affecting national health outcomes, creating negative knock-on effects to "business", and that private healthcare businesses wouldn't gouge the customer *directly* is a little bit optimistic, perhaps to the point of naivety, is it not?

 

[Jake]

If they thought these were not sustainable, they're a new government, they could have stopped them, just like the struck down the rewanda bill. So whether are not they were Tory is irrelevant, they chose to implement them.

The government has not got an option not to pay. They are liable to pay because the state caused serious wrongful harm to these people. If they don't sort out an acceptable (and cheaper) compensation scheme, they will just get sued and be made to pay more anyway.

Tip: If something seems 'simples', more understanding is probably required.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

If they thought these were not sustainable, they're a new government, they could have stopped them, just like the struck down the rewanda bill. So whether are not they were Tory is irrelevant, they chose to implement them.

Disingenuous. Do you really think that reneging or withdrawing from a promise to pay compensation for the contaminated blood scandal was a viable option? Most of the other unfunded spending promises were of similar ilk.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

We keep following the same deal

Tories are corrupt, to their very core. Have been, always will be.
they devastate the economy and cut or completely remove public services.

It gets so bad that the public then vote in labour.
Labour needs to make hard choices to get it all back on track. This means taxation.

After a bit the public, get fed up with the taxation, but are forgetting that public services are back to normal, they have taken them for granted and forgotten what it was like without them.
So they vote the tories back in again and around we go.

The NHS will be fixed by labour. Homes will be built and the general public will have a good standard of living. But it will take time and we're just going to have to suck it up

The tories invest in people who donate to the tories
Labour invest in the population.

Take one billion pounds.
The tories would give 1000 millionaires 1000000 each and they would bank that money offshore
Labour would give 1000000 people 1000 pounds, and they would spend it in our economy

So who is better for our economy. the millionaires or the public.

Labour in their first 3 months:

• demonstrated a gross lack of judgement over the winter fuel allowance
• a similar lack of judgement over their response to the expenses, clothing, football tickets, freebies revelations
• promised to live within the fiscal rules - now overturned
• criticised the Tories as the party of high taxation - now demonstrably proven untrue
• very selective use of language to defend massive tax rises not signalled in the manifesto

The B/S over £22bn black holes, and "we didn't realise it was so bad" - you are free to believe it if you want. They insisted they were going to end the chaos, had access to OBR, Treasury and other officials. It is simply spin predictably deployed to blame their predecessors.

They clearly share many of the political "genes" with the Tories. The only thing separating the two is 14 years of practice. Your faith in them is, I think, misguided.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I think that's an over-simplification and doesn't really bear up to scrutiny - particularly when we know that many new treatments are not available on the NHS because they are "too expensive" and that the NHS does often wait until drug patents expire and they become "generic drugs" before the NHS is able to prescribe them.

The majority of the smart (unbiased) research and evidence concludes that the NHS costs less *overall* for the UK, despite notions to the contrary. It is also a national investment into labour (small l) which increases workforce availability - which is a fundamental key requirement of Capitalism.

The very notion that a private healthcare system wouldn't cost far more overall, plus restrict/prohibit access to the most needy, negatively affecting national health outcomes, creating negative knock-on effects to "business", and that private healthcare businesses wouldn't gouge the customer *directly* is a little bit optimistic, perhaps to the point of naivety, is it not?

Yet you complain of private business getting rich on the back of the NHS. You can’t have it both ways.

 

[Jacob]

Labour in their first 3 months:

• .....
• criticised the Tories as the party of high taxation - now demonstrably proven untrue
• .....

I don't think they did. I think everybody thinks taxation is too low and there are endless calls for wealth taxes etc. It's inevitable in a healthy modern economy - "the price of civilisation" as the saying goes.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

I'll do this one...

Labour in their first 3 months:

• demonstrated a gross lack of judgement over the winter fuel allowance

Realistically, they did well to prioritise that information in the face of the known unfunded spending promises - giving those affected a reasonable time to make adjustments instead of springing it on people in Nov with no time to adjust.

• a similar lack of judgement over their response to the expenses, clothing, football tickets, freebies revelations

Not really: some people are just gullible enough to mindlessly accept that accepting gifts over the last 4 years, which are well within rules, is in some way comparable to, or "worse" than, years of evidenced rule breaking, illegal decisions and actual corruption.

• promised to live within the fiscal rules - now overturned

It is true to say that the rules have had to be altered - but the jury is out about whether this will be a temporary or permanent change?

• criticised the Tories as the party of high taxation - now demonstrably proven untrue

Incorrect.
All of the respected financial institutions report factually that the "tax burden" was highest on record during 2021-2024. This is an incontrovertible fact and no amount of silly words will change that.

• very selective use of language to defend massive tax rises not signalled in the manifesto

See point below, because you don't appear to have read my post above about the known unfunded spending and the unknown unfunded spending promised by previous govt.

The B/S over £22bn black holes, and "we didn't realise it was so bad" - you are free to believe it if you want. They insisted they were going to end the chaos, had access to OBR, Treasury and other officials. It is simply spin predictably deployed to blame their predecessors.

See the OBR report published yesterday which confirms that the previous govt concealed some of their spending commitments from the OBR.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Yet you complain of private business getting rich on the back of the NHS. You can’t have it both ways.

Did I. All I did was report it, not explicitly complain about it. <shrug> I don't like it, that's true, but I cannot see a realistic mechanism to curtail that, other than not buy the equipment in the first place, and create the knock-on effects of negatively affecting health outcomes...