Privatisation is not about it being insurance based and regulated.
Er, yes, it is!
Privatisation is about getting a US style system where people go bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills and people die because their insurance does not cover their treatable condition while provate health care companies make billions in profits.
That is because huge chunks of the health care system in the US are not regulated.
In those states where it is regulated or in those schemes where state regulation kicks in, it works remarkably well. HMOs do not get a good press very often - but they actually work! City-based schemes like the one in San Antonio costs $360 per month per family (less than half the cost of the NHS for a two-person household) and covers all hospital care but no OTC treatments. An old army buddy of mine spent a year in hospital under that scheme - own room, perfect and timely treatment.
So why was he in hospital? Because when he was here in the UK, he went to the local GP with chest pains and tingling in his arms and shortness of breath. 'Bronchitis!' said the GP and gave him some pills.
Months later he was in San Antonio and his US wife had signed them up to the city care programme (at the time just $240 a month). He was with his wife when he collapsed on the street just six months after seeing that GP.
He was put on all the various machines that go 'Ping!' and his wife Cindy was called. "It's serious. About six months ago, your husband had a severe heart attack." She was shown the graph on the ECG.
The doctors could not believe that a person with a medical qualification could miss the obvious signs. They also wondered at the fact that he was not immediately put on an ECG.
My mate spent a year in hospital and his wife could stay with him in his room as long and as often as she wanted to. He made it to their new home outside San Antonio where he died a few weeks later. His ashes are in our orchard.
I could site case after case like that. Yes, the NHS does provide appropriate care - but for every case they get right, there is another that they get wrong. Badly wrong. And usually with life-altering consequences for the victims.
That is the true cost of state-run health care.
__________________________
I do disagree with the sentiment that private is always better. There are public functions that are and must remain governmental. Police, the military, prisons, courts are typical functions that are the expected functions of state.
I also disagree profoundly with sudden change as this ALWAYS comes with economic costs - and the more sudden the changes, the higher the costs always are. We saw this with the lunatic nationalisation of industry after the war and the equally lunatic privatisation under Thatcher.
Adopting US style private health care will not help.
That is a strawman argument. Only a fool would suggest that we have the chaos that is the US system - some parts brilliant and others non-existent. US health care is always being paraded as the boo-man that we all must avoid.
I can only speak for the German system as that is the only one I know properly and have studied. It is CHEAPER than the NHS, it provides effective and timely healthcare and despite all the pressures of C19 and the immigration of millions of refugees, manages to have the second-best health outcomes in Europe.
That system is regulated by the state, but it is not owned and run by the state. The doctors and the clinics and hospitals are privately run and are paid by the treatment and not for just existing. Nearly all hospitals and clinics are either charities or are not-for-profit companies or societies.
The state is not the answer to every problem. Very often, it is the problem. Certainly, that has been proven by the near-total collapse of the NHS.
History has shown us repeatedly that the UK economy can carry a public sector that accounts for 35% of the economy. That is pretty high, but provides us with roads and schools and all the other bits and pieces that we expect Papa State to provide. Every time we have gone above 35% of GDP, the economy flat-lines and then, as state spending increases, GDP falls - and with that fall, tax revenues also fall!
Catch 22 as they say!
A similar figure applies to every other economy on Planet Earth. Spend too little and GDP falls, Spend too much and GDP falls. Somewhere between 20% and 35% is the right place to be - and where that place is, depends on the social structure of that society. (And that is one giant and complex field of study!)
The UK public sector right now is 53% of GDP.
Yes, over half the economy is public spending. That is borrowing from future generations on a grand scale. That is madness! That is suicidal!
Total government expenditure (FY 20-21) was £1.115 trillion. GDP, £2.1 trillion.
It was 35% and then the idiot Johnson took over and tried to solve every problem with uncontrolled Papa State spending. That is the very worst thing he could have done.
He can't raise taxes because it will slow down the economy (even more!) and that reduces tax revenues. If inflation continues to rise, the government will not be able to cover interest payments (now even higher than defense spending). A real energy crisis is coming and coming soon!
Johnson and his schoolboy chancellor are going to crash the economy and then see how much Papa State can spend on the NHS!
I shall watch developments with interest and a wry smile!
www.scottishwater.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk
theferret.scot
