# The NHS Under Threat



## Sukerkin (Mar 30, 2013)

http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...l-offers-final-chance-save-our-health-service

Having been very focussed on the tragedy that has been happening in my own life, I had not realised quite the extent of the Tory drive to sell off one of the few things they didn't hand over to their 'friends' last time they were in power.

Well done to Lord Owen for trying to remind the current crop of Liberals, who are in bed with the Conservatives, what Liberal values should inspire them to do.


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## K-man (Mar 30, 2013)

Sukerkin said:


> http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...l-offers-final-chance-save-our-health-service
> 
> Having been very focussed on the tragedy that has been happening in my own life, I had not realised quite the extent of the Tory drive to sell off one of the few things they didn't hand over to their 'friends' last time they were in power.
> 
> Well done to Lord Owen for trying to remind the current crop of Liberals, who are in bed with the Conservatives, what Liberal values should inspire them to do.


I not sure our American friends appreciate the benefits of an NHS and the implications of its demise.    :asian:


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## Carol (Mar 30, 2013)

NHS is a difficult concept to grok because, unlike our Canadian neighbours, we've never had such a thing. But complicated questions of public vs private, costs spiraling out of control, what the hell do we DO with health care, and the like is something we can definitely understand.

I hope we can all find functional solutions that can benefit our respective peoples, whatever those solutions may be :asian:


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## arnisador (Mar 30, 2013)

I'll take it over what we have here.


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## billc (May 3, 2013)

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/05/annals-of-government-medicine-23.php




> Here is the latest: a National Health Service rationing panel refused  to pay for surgery that was needed by Rebecca Beattie, 25, to repair  her face after it was smashed by an abusive ex-husband. Her breathing is  impaired, and her need for the surgery seemed indisputable. Yet the  rationing panel turned her down four times. At the same time, the panel  approved breast augmentation surgery for a would-be stripper named Josie  Cunningham. The Sun expressed outrage in its inimitable style:
> 
> A BATTERED mum last night told of her outrage after the  NHS refused to rebuild her shattered nose  as wannabe model Josie  Cunningham flaunted her taxpayer-funded boobs.
> Rebecca Beattie, 25, whose nose was crushed by her brutal ex, was  told her £5,500 op was not essential and she must pay for it herself.
> ...


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## billc (May 3, 2013)

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/09/14/the-number-of-do-not-resuscitate-dnr-notices-being-imposed-without-consultation-is-now-a-national-scandal-what-will-the-bma-do-about-it/




> It is, on the face of it, encouraging that there has been such widespread, and such critical, reporting  of the case of a Down&#8217;s syndrome patient who is taking legal action  against an NHS trust after a &#8220;do not resuscitate&#8221; (DNR) order was put on  his medical file without his knowledge or the knowledge of his next of  kin. It instructed staff not to perform resuscitation in the event of a  cardio or respiratory arrest. It also gave his disability as the sole  reason for its imposition.
> 
> 
> The 51-year-old man (referred to as AWA) was admitted to the Queen  Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent, on September 7  last year. Despite daily visits by his family and carer and meetings  between his parents and the clinicians,
> ...


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## Sukerkin (May 3, 2013)

Ahem ... {coughs politely} ... not exactly an accurate account being portrayed there but just enough blood in the water to get the BNP Wannabees frothing at the mouth in righteous fury.


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## K-man (May 3, 2013)

Sukerkin said:


> Ahem ... {coughs politely} ... not exactly an accurate account being portrayed there but just enough blood in the water to get the BNP Wannabees frothing at the mouth in righteous fury.


And of course it is yet another example of why Obamacare is a terrible idea and would just be a waste of taxpayer money.


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## Flying Crane (May 3, 2013)

Sukerkin said:


> Ahem ... {coughs politely} ... not exactly an accurate account being portrayed there but just enough blood in the water to get the BNP Wannabees frothing at the mouth in righteous fury.



par for the course?  hey when you've got an agenda to push...


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## arnisador (May 3, 2013)

K-man said:


> And of course it is yet another example of why Obamacare is a terrible idea and would just be a waste of taxpayer money.



...because even if all this were true, look around a U.S. emergency room and get back to me.


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## Riffix (May 3, 2013)

I've spent a lot of time in hospital here, had good and bad experience with the nhs, worst being doctors booking me into surgery at7 year old and telling my dad he couldn't spend the night with me and could pick me up after the operation, I was in tears until my dad turned the xray the right way up for him...surgery canceled. as an English man moving to America it does worry me that if I break my arm for a 5th time how much is it going to cost?! I've had physio on my back, neck and arm through the NHS and gotta say I wouldn't of been able to do that if I was paying for it. I met a guy with a huge lump on his neck last time I was in the states, I asked about it n he said its been there for a month but he couldn't afford to get it looked at. 

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk 2


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## Big Don (May 3, 2013)

arnisador said:


> ...because even if all this were true, look around a U.S. emergency room and get back to me.



You mean a place of business that is forced, by federal law, to provide service without regard, and frequently without hope of being paid?
Restaurants aren't forced to feed people because they are hungry...
Car dealers aren't forced to give cars to pedestrians...
Perhaps if the law allowed hospitals to run as businesses, they wouldn't look like that.


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## Steve (May 3, 2013)

Big Don said:


> You mean a place of business that is forced, by federal law, to provide service without regard, and frequently without hope of being paid?
> Restaurants aren't forced to feed people because they are hungry...
> Car dealers aren't forced to give cars to pedestrians...
> Perhaps if the law allowed hospitals to run as businesses, they wouldn't look like that.



Yeah, after all, it's their fault they don't have insurance.  Stupid poor people.  Glad we're not them. Right don?  

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD


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## Big Don (May 3, 2013)

Steve said:


> Yeah, after all, it's their fault they don't have insurance.  Stupid poor people.  Glad we're not them. Right don?
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD



Let charities do their thing. Oh, but, then the whining would be about how this charity didn't pay for this procedure because it was against their views...


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## billc (May 3, 2013)

Hmmm...did people even read this...



> against an NHS trust after a &#8220;do not resuscitate&#8221; (DNR) order was put on his medical file without his knowledge or the knowledge of his next of kin.


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## K-man (May 4, 2013)

billc said:


> Hmmm...did people even read this...


Yep, and it might have been a stuff up. But did you read that the guy also had dementia.  If I had dementia I would hope that someone would put a DNR on my chart too. :asian:


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## billc (May 4, 2013)

> without his knowledge or the knowledge of his next of kin.


Yeah, it would be nice if they talked to you and your family before they did it though...don't you think...or perhaps you could get a second opinion...or perhaps they could make sure you were the patient they actually meant to have the DNR and had not accidentally put it on the chart of the 20 year old in for appendicitis...perhaps...?


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## billc (May 4, 2013)

> just enough blood in the water to get the BNP Wannabees frothing at the mouth



Just looked up the bnp...another bunch of lefties...by American standards...



> *Economic policy*
> 
> The economic policy of the party has developed over time. In the 1990s, the party reflected protectionism and economic nationalism, although in comparison with other radical nationalist parties, the BNP focuses less on corporatism.[SUP][148][/SUP] It has called for British ownership of its own industries and resources and the
> 
> ...



Just saying...


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## K-man (May 4, 2013)

billc said:


> Yeah, it would be nice if they talked to you and your family before they did it though...don't you think...or perhaps you could get a second opinion...or perhaps they could make sure you were the patient they actually meant to have the DNR and had not accidentally put it on the chart of the 20 year old in for appendicitis...perhaps...?


And I am saying people make mistakes in hospitals. That is not an argument against a national health scheme. It may be that the hospital procedures are not what they should be. And, if the guy has dementia, how do you know he didn't give consent? 



> A majority of the harm and damage was not life threatening, however the study found that a projected 15,000 Medicare patients die monthly as a result of hospital care.
> http://www.emaxhealth.com/1357/hospitals-can-be-dangerous-your-health


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## Sukerkin (May 4, 2013)

billc said:


> Just looked up the bnp...another bunch of lefties...by American standards...
> 
> 
> 
> Just saying...



:lol:  :faints:  I think we have just established that our world views on politics are severely different, Bill .  

I know we knew that but the news you think our indigenous Right-Wing-Nutters are Lefties just goes to show *how* different the political landscapes we inhabit are.

It's a miracle we can talk on the matter at all with the frames of reference being so dissimilar - so I say, "Yay us" for that .


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## Makalakumu (May 4, 2013)

IMHO, when Americans criticize socialized health care systems, they do so without understanding that they have a fascist health care system.  There could be several huge improvements if the US would simply follow what other wealthy countries in the world do.  Of course, we're going to have similar problems in America then, but are they worse than what we have now?  For example, my father in law was laid off because of the current economic depression, if he gets a job, he can't get the same insurance benefits that he needs in order to get care for himself and his wife who both have serious health problems.  Of course, in a system like the NHS, both him and his wife may not get the care fast enough in order to maintain their health.  In particular, my mother in law has a degenerative disease that is causing dementia and she needs to live in a special care facility.  Would the NHS choke her care off and kill her because it costs so much?

How would a truly free market in health care solve this problems?  Americans don't know.  Americans have a fascist health care system where costs have been driven up through the roof by state sponsored monopolies in insurance and medical services.  I think that if we look at other free markets, we can predict similar phenomenon in health care.  We can also look at the past.  America had a freer market in health care long ago and some of those benefits are recorded in the historical record.  I think, based on both of these examples, that a real market driven system would be FAR better for people than both the fascist and socialist health care models.  

In a real free market system, the incentives for having good health would exist rather than being exactly opposite because of government intervention.  There are all kinds of policies that government creates that destroy the health care of it's citizens.  For example, America subsidizes corn production, making cheap processed food cheaper than healthy food.  We also construct dietary advice based off of industrial needs rather than what is actually good for the body.  If you learned about the health pyramid, with a diet that was heavy on carbs, you learned a fascist model of health that was intended to promote the interests of certain agricultural corporations.  Another thing that America does that wrecks citizens health care is that it protects people from the results of living poorly.  When 80% of chronic disease is self induced and we allow people to get care regardless, we take away any financial incentive to eat healthy.  

On the supply side, when we erect all kinds of barriers in regards to insurance, we drive up insurance costs for everyone and make riskier policies unaffordable.  When we monopolize care with regulation and give one class of people the legal authority to provide even simple forms of care, we jack up the prices for all forms of care across the board.  For example, the AMA conspired with the government in the early part of last century to regulate diagnosis and treatment of even simple health problems.  They created a licensure for such things that requires a huge time and financial commitment that simply is not needed for most health problems.  This is one of the reasons it costs $$$ to take an aspirin from a doctor.  

A real free market solves all of these problems.  Health care costs would drop because there would be more people competing to offer services.  People would be able to buy cheap insurance regardless of where they lived and what they needed.  People would have real incentive to stay healthy because the true price of unhealthy behavior would finally be revealed.  People would see actual prices and markets develop for healthy food and that sort of food would out compete the unhealthy food because of the true costs attached to it.  There would be all kinds of benefits that people in both fascist and socialist health care systems can't even imagine.  This is why I oppose both of these systems.  I don't want to choose one over the other, because both of them wreck the health of citizens in different ways.  IMO, the problem is government.  We see the effects of two approaches of government regulation on health care and we argue between them without questioning the fundamental assumption of whether government should be involved at all.  People refuse to look at the downside of both systems and correctly link this to government involvement because they were indoctrinated to the idea that government should do something in the first place.  

The government is the problem.  More government is not the solution.


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## K-man (May 4, 2013)

The problem of using emotive language.   



> *Fascism* (pron.: /&#712;fæ&#643;&#618;z&#601;m/) is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that came to prominence in mid-20th century Europe. Fascists seek to unify their nation through a totalitarian state that promotes the mass mobilization of the national community, relying on a vanguard party to initiate a revolution to organize the nation on fascist principles. Hostile to liberal democracy, socialism, and communism, fascist movements share certain common features, including the veneration of the state, a devotion to a strong leader, and an emphasis on ultranationalism, ethnocentrism, and militarism. Fascism views political violence, war, and imperialism as a means to achieve national rejuvenation and asserts that nations and races deemed "superior" should attain living space by displacing ones deemed "weak" or "inferior".
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism





> *Socialism* is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, or citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them. They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets or planning, how management is to be organised within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.
> A socialist economic system would consist of a system of production and distribution organized to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital. Accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time in place of financial calculation. Distribution would be based on the principle to each according to his contribution.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism



Perhaps, to make it easier for simple folk like me to understand, you could make a list of countries under each heading so we could discuss this further. I mean, I can understand your view of the US is 'fascist' because you said so, but where do the UK, Australia and Canada fit in? How about Denmark. I mean we recently had a discussion to demonstrate that despite the Danes saying they are a socialist state that really they are not! Does that mean they must be 'fascist'? I mean, this thread is about the British NHS which is similar to that in Australia, Canada and Denmark.

Just in case you missed it, this is *Suka*'s concern.



> David Owen has today published in full a bill in the House of Lords to reinstate the NHS and the secretary of state&#8217;s legal duty to provide a national health service throughout England. This duty has been in force since 1948 and is the legal foundation of the NHS and our rights and entitlements to health care, a duty the coalition&#8217;s Health and Social Care Act 2012 is abolishing.
> 
> 
> Owen&#8217;s 'reinstatement' bill puts into reverse the monstrous 473 H&SC Act, which from April this year abolishes the NHS throughout England, reducing it to a stream of taxpayer funds and a brand or logo for the public bodies and private companies which will receive them. The bill does not entail yet more disruptive reorganisation, it simply restores the democratic basis of the NHS and the rights and entitlements of all citizens to comprehensive care; rights which were shredded by the 2012 Act.
> ...


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## Sukerkin (May 4, 2013)

Thank you, *K*,  I was going to offer a redirect to the OP myself but, sadly, to be honest, I just didn't have the care to spare.  Extremists will be extreme and pay no attention to any voice that does not speak what they want to hear, so what is the point?  You can only have debate amongst the reasonable (people whose eyes work as well as their fingers in the forum context) - for everyone else you are left with violence (verbal or otherwise) or silence.


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## Makalakumu (May 4, 2013)

I think the distinction is fairly simple. Fascism and socialism are strategies for the deployment of government power. Fascism puts government power into the hands of corporations. Socialism puts government power into the hands of larger competing groups of people. Canada, UK, Oz, and Scandinavia are what would be considered social democracies.  People vote for how they would like to deploy power in their economy.

I think the main issue expressed in this thread is the shift the UK is experiencing in how the Tories would like to deploy power. That party strikes me as more fascist leaning.

Of course, there are some who believe that government shouldn't deploy power at all in the economy, that the deployment of power causes all kinds of problems that could be avoided by letting people act freely. This is always an option in regards to health care.


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## billc (May 4, 2013)

Fascism and socialism are the same thing...with different window dressing...Mussolini, originally a marxist, used the term to differentiate himself from the international socialists who kicked him out of the party.  Stalin used the term fascism to differeniate the national socialists in Germany from his international socialists...to try to keep his guys from defecting to the national socialists...

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fascism_and_communism-socialism.html



> That fraud collapsed in the 1940&#8217;s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory&#8212;that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state&#8212;that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders&#8212;that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique&#8212;that fascism is not the product of the political &#8220;right,&#8221; but of the &#8220;left&#8221;&#8212;that the basic issue is not &#8220;rich versus poor,&#8221; but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government&#8212;which means: capitalism versus socialism.



Amen...

Sukerkin...you started this when you mentione the BNP...I only reply to what was said, I didn't take us anywhere you didn't lead us to...my apologies...


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## Sukerkin (May 4, 2013)

Not to worry, Bill - it's not your fault, _per se_, good sir, that 'discourse' (using the term with irony) on anything remotely political ends up with opposing voices shouting and no ears listening.

This thread is supposed to be about how there is an awareness that the great thing that is the NHS is under threat from the small minded political agendas of the party of the wealthy lining the pockets of their 'own'.  

But I am past caring how things get mangled out here in web-land - the very fact that what should be a medium of information and knowledge is mostly porn, idiocy and venom is indictment enough of the lowest-common-denominator level that too much 'reporting' of the human condition brings to the fore.  Altho' I still believe in my heart that nearly all people are 'good', you would never know it from the Net.


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## arnisador (May 4, 2013)

billc said:


> Fascism and socialism are the same thing...



OK, I'm confused now...is Obama a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist, or a Kenyan-born Muslim fascist?!!


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## Big Don (May 4, 2013)

arnisador said:


> OK, I'm confused now...is Obama a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist, or a Kenyan-born Muslim fascist?!!



Hawaiian born megalomaniac...


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## billc (May 4, 2013)

I forget who said this but whoever it is nailed it...obama is a petulant narcissist...


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