Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:04 pm  

The Video Ref wrote: The NHS was a difficult concept from day 1. People were going to live longer and treatments were going to become more expensive as medicine advanced. Still, there is no excuse for spending money on treatments like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... lants.html What an ugly looking women

The Video Ref wrote: The NHS was a difficult concept from day 1. People were going to live longer and treatments were going to become more expensive as medicine advanced. Still, there is no excuse for spending money on treatments like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... lants.html What an ugly looking women

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:36 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

The reality now is that very few people earn enough to be safe in the knowledge that whatever ailments come their way they can afford a private team to put them right again and for anyone who has ever checked recently even if all encompassing and unlimited private health care existed (it doesn't), it would be beyond most of our wallets, particularly those with families and ironically its those with children who are most likely to need a health care plan and ironically again its childrens ailments that often have the highest success rates, albeit often with cost expensive requirements.

Anyone who thinks that they are ok and won't need an NHS in a socially funded framework and not dependent on markets or accountants is probably deluded enough to need help from that very health service.

There are a lot of misconceptions amongst the supporters of private healthcare, about what it will mean for them in practice. I expect most of its supporters are relatively rich, and expect that in a private healthcare system, they will either get better healthcare for similar cost to their current tax contributions or get the same level of healthcare for lower insurance premiums than their current tax contributions. They expect that the people that will lose out are those lower down the income chain who were being subsidised by the tax contributions of the rich.

However, in a private healthcare system you are only better off if you are relatively healthy. In that case, insurers compete for your custom, because the way they make their money is by having relatively healthy people that do not claim much. If you have a simple condition that needs straightforward treatment like a one off operation (eg a hernia) then a private insurance system is likely to work better for you than the NHS, you will get seen quickly at a time to suit you and there will be no waiting lists like there are in the NHS. Also if you want general appointments or scans again you can get these quickly.

The problem comes when you have complicated or expensive treatment or something chronic, or something that is likely to compromise your health going forwards (eg a heart attack, stroke, cancer etc). From this point on, you are a likely loss maker for any health insurer as you are a risk of being a heavy claimer in the future. So from now on they do not care about having your custom, they want you off their books. Their goal from now on is providing the minimum treatment they and their legal teams can get away with providing (and they will have made sure their policies are tightly written to minimise their obligations). The idea that you now have great 'patient choice' goes out of the window, the insurer chooses what and how much treatment you can have. If they don't cover it then either sell your house, find the money elsewhere or tough.

The NHS, for all its faults, does not give up on you. No matter who you are and how much of a burden you will be on it in the future, it does its best to treat you, it does not thrust its legal teams in your face when you are sick to show you the small print so that it can get out of obligation to treat you. The NHS is not there to profit, a private insurer is, so sadly at the point you become no longer profitable for it, the insurer will drop you like a stone.

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 6:54 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

The NHS, for all its faults, does not give up on you. No matter who you are and how much of a burden you will be on it in the future, it does its best to treat you, it does not thrust its legal teams in your face when you are sick to show you the small print so that it can get out of obligation to treat you. The NHS is not there to profit, a private insurer is, so sadly at the point you become no longer profitable for it, the insurer will drop you like a stone.

The TV program "24 hours in the NHS" (or something like that) was an illustrator of that last week, following various consultants and doctors in their jobs on a given day last year in lots of different hospitals, the camera/editors all concluded each piece when a patient was referred to a different department or successfully treated and sent home with the question "Have you ever stopped to think how much your treatment of that person has cost today ?" and to their credit each of them didn't know, and nor should they ever be in a position to have to stop and think about it either.

Thats not to say that they go on treating for ever, there was an example of an old lady who was in for palliative treatment and who died several weeks later, she still deserved their full attention even though they had all agreed to stop fighting her cancer and no-one knew how much she was costed out at.

Only an accountant with a heart of stone and a head full of idiocy would try and cost out each individual consultation anyway - its the same with all of the emergency services, they are there for their twelve hour shifts anyway whether they sit on their backsides or rescue forty cats from forty trees, we've already paid for them !

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 7:24 pm  

When a Telegraph columnist and an NHS doctor (the same person) concludes that The NHS is up for grabs, you just know the job's fooked

When a Telegraph columnist and an NHS doctor (the same person) concludes that The NHS is up for grabs, you just know the job's fooked

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 9:10 pm  

cod'ead wrote: When a Telegraph columnist and an NHS doctor (the same person) concludes that The NHS is up for grabs, you just know the job's fooked An interesting article. Although I don't believe for one moment that a patient would be refused revision surgery on a botched knee replacement. Today also saw legal aid go for pretty much everything but criminal law.

cod'ead wrote: When a Telegraph columnist and an NHS doctor (the same person) concludes that The NHS is up for grabs, you just know the job's fooked An interesting article. Although I don't believe for one moment that a patient would be refused revision surgery on a botched knee replacement. Today also saw legal aid go for pretty much everything but criminal law.

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 9:11 pm  

rover49 wrote:

What an ugly looking women

She sounds like she has smoked 50 a day for the last 20 years. Which she probably has.

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 9:42 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

An interesting article. Although I don't believe for one moment that a patient would be refused revision surgery on a botched knee replacement.

Today also saw legal aid go for pretty much everything but criminal law.

Then let the scales fall from your eyes because each and every change that comes into being today is linked. The common link has little, if anything to do with saving money. No ones taxes will reduce, apart from those earning more than £150k per year. The state will continue to spend, the only difference being that somewhere someone, or more than one, will be taking a profit.

The poor will end up poorer, the sick will end up even more sick. This bunch of evil bastads are going further than even Thatcher would have dreamed possible and the frightening thing is: it is happening by creep. There will be no big bang, just a relentless chipping away at the social compact that we've enjoyed since 1947. I cannot even begin to explain how deep my hatred of the Conservative party and their supporters is but I do know that the hatred grows as each day of this government continues.

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Mon Apr 01, 2013 10:12 pm  

Not unexpectedly, there could be worse to come: Minimum wage could be frozen or even cut Is there really no end to what this bunch can dream up?

Not unexpectedly, there could be worse to come: Minimum wage could be frozen or even cut Is there really no end to what this bunch can dream up?

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Tue Apr 02, 2013 1:21 am  

Sadly, no, there really isn't.

Re: NHS - RIP 1 April 2013 : Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:19 am  

The last rise to the adult minimum wage was 11p per hour.

We'll ignore the fact that most employees on the NMW are employed on zero hour or short term or part time contracts and assume a worst case scenario that they are working a 40 hour week - thats a wage rise of £4.40 a week or £228 per year, taxable.

I don't know how employers can keep a straight face or stop themselves from blushing when they state that such lavish and extravagant behaviour will ruin the business and crush the economy.