Posted on 02/22/2016 4:40:40 PM PST by Kaslin
Britain has "free" health care, which means it is run by the government and funded by taxpayers. Those on the left in the U.S. want to move to this model, which is often referred to as universal healthcare or single-payer since the government handles all the financing. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If health care doesn't cost anything, people are going to use more of it. They're not going to think prudently about which services they really need because they don't feel the immediate cost.
Consequently, 131 out of the 138 hospital trusts in Britain's National Health System (NHS) are now in debt. The deficit has nearly tripled in size over the past year, and may reach £2.9 billion. "These figures are beyond dire," declared Adam Roberts, a representative of the Health Foundation think tank. The think tank has also revealed that efficiency improvements have remained stagnant. With no competition (other than private health care which costs money), there is little incentive to make improvements. David Prior, former head of the Care and Quality Commission (CQC) non-departmental public body, admits there is no real market in British health care, and says this especially hurts people in rural areas who have access to only one hospital regardless of quality. He said 20 percent of hospitals have serious problems dating back several years, and another 20 percent are only performing so-so.
Patients have long waits to see specialists, and consequently British mortality rates are higher than in the U.S. The heart disease mortality rate is 36 percent higher than that in the U.S., and cancer survival rates are higher for Americans for all major cancer types. The breast cancer mortality rate is 88 percent higher in the UK.
What no one will suggest is that maybe government-run health care isn’t working. Instead, according to an anonymous whistleblower who is the finance director at an NHS foundation trust, national regulators are pressuring the hospitals to cook their books. He told the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee how an accountant masked a deficit of £10 million in 2008, in order to show a surplus of £1 million. The accountant was prosecuted and sent to prison. The whistleblower says the deficit targets set for the hospitals are not realistic and cannot be achieved. One out of three NHS providers are refusing to accept the deficit targets.
Another whistleblower, Dr. Raj Mattu, said because of forced cuts at his hospital two patients died. He told The Daily Mail that nothing was being done about it and everything was being swept under the rug, "Hospital chief executive David Loughton was oiling the machine for his government paymasters." Similarly, whistleblower Dr. Chris Day revealed staff shortages and psychologist Narinder Kapur reported a hospital for using unqualified staff in the neurosciences clinic. Recent research indicates an alarming one out of 10 patients suffers harm in the NHS system.
Yet instead of fixing the problems, the whistleblowers report being retaliated against by the hospitals. They say trumped-up complaints are brought against them, forcing them to face fitness-to-practice (FTP) hearings in front of the General Medical Council. These hearings are so traumatic that "over 100 doctors facing such hearings have committed suicide between 2005 and 2013. None of the sacked whistleblowers have reportedly been able to find comparable reemployment.
The whistleblowers tellingly say the punishments make them feel like they are living behind the Iron Curtain. Socialized healthcare is a big step toward a totalitarian government. If Bernie Sanders is elected president, he will try to implement a similar system here. Yet British socialized health care is not working well and continues to deteriorate. It would be naive to ignore this growing catastrophe and continue to press for a similar system in the U.S.
Single Payer is what goes on in Canada.
The NHS and Single Payer are both bad ideas, but they are not the same bad idea.
I don't often say it, but I stopped reading after that nonsensical remark.
I will say the National Health ran a long time - since the 1950s, right? That’s a long time to wean people off an entitlement.
As the child of a hypochondriac, I know how people are running Medicare into the grave - using MRIs and CAT scans the way some people use tanning beds. Sad.
They have a two-tier system. You can go NHS or private. You pay for private care, but it’s not as much as in the US.I used both when I lived there.
Private care was great. NHS incredibly lacking.
Single payer failed in Vermont.
how is this possible?? The rich are taxed at a progressive rate there are high gas taxes to fund the NHS too.
Apparently govt can’t run healthcare anywhere!
One of the worst abuses of the NHS I read about was that the NHS “pays for” in vitro fertilization, a procedure that runs several thousand dollars. The NHS also “pays for” abortion. About one out of eight women who use in vitro fertilization to get pregnant turn around and abort the resulting baby.
People really don’t care about cost when they don’t pay directly. If those women had to pay for both the in vitro procedure and abortion themselves, the incidence of both would decrease, and the practice of going to great length to get pregnant with no intention of having the baby alive would probably disappear completely.
Ah, the old US Post Office model. Or the tax-payer funded Amtrak train model.
“Consequently, 131 out of the 138 hospital trusts in Britain’s National Health System (NHS) are now in debt. “
Probably need some really highly degreed and highly paid “debt” trust administrators! Managing “trusts” with positive balances are easy, managing debt trusts are much harder.
Could have their “Department of Official Socialist Lies” restate the trust balances to more favorably reflect the successes of socialism.....the stupid peasants will never figure it out.
1948.
I would have figured patient dying of dehydration in their hospital beds because NHS nurses were ‘too busy’ to bring them water or check their condidtions would have been a warning.
But Democrats are stupid that way.
At the time we were stationed at Fort Riley, KS. Had we been stationed in Germany I would have filed the biggest law suit against the hospital. Unfortunately it would have not brought him back.
“Single Payer is what goes on in Canada.”
as an ex Canuck, almost true. It depends on the province. Each citizen or resident is “forced’ to pony up a monthly premium. You dont pay up, they hand over your info to collections AND you cant even go to clinics because you are in the system.
Still I TELL American Freepers never get sick in canada because the doctors and nurses there are UNIONIZED and they dont give a damn about you.
NHS, was passed by Clement Attlee in the late 40’s, the first socialist pig with a majority government, regarded by leftist historians as one the best UK Prime Minsters or even THE best. Conservatives were too timid to propose getting rid of it, so it remains.
Turning out Churchill for that POS in 1945 was perhaps the most disgraceful election result in world history.
I always remember the scene in 84 Charring Cross Road in which Judy Dench praises it. My feeling: if Brits like it and want it, they should keep it. If they can. It’s none of my business.
Very sorry to hear that terrible story.
Here’s a question for you: we always hear about Britain’s poverty after WWII - rationing, etc. And yet you did have a successful healthcare system. How did that happen?
The NHS starts with a wartime coalition agreement, so its roots are not all socialist.
As a Conservative, I do not regard Attlee as a pig or POS, I think he was a very decent man and a fine politician. I simply disagree with some of his policies. No need for such language. As an actual Brit, I don’t like such language used to describe a former British Prime Minister and certainly don’t think the man deserves it. The man did after all send British troops to fight communism in Korea and Malaya, fight terrorism in Palestine. Yes, I agree he was by far the best Labour leader, ahead of Wilson and Blair. He made in hindsight good decisions and also some poor decisions. The UK entry into Korea actually caused us financial trouble but he/we as in 1914 and 1939 understood that sometimes morality and doing the right thing must trump the pound and shilling.
Americans tend to forget why we voted Winnie out. It was because A-—the Tories had been in power since the 30s and had led the country to another war. B—what Labour 1945 offered was a ‘new jerusalem’, a very attractive idea of postwar Britain, with a free NHS, new housing, improved working conditions and labour rules, more leisure time, better schooling and other social issues.
To a country near bankrupt, bombed out and burying nearly 400000 men and women, military and civilian, their idea of a new Britain was far more attractive than the Tories more of the same. To be frankly honest, I would have voted for it in 1945 as a young man or an older family man.
To ask why we kicked him out is to fail to grasp Britain in 1945 and Britain postwar.
Britain simply wasn’t broke, BUT did have to tighten its belts. There was still money ring-fenced as now for defence and other crucial depts.
Remember then as now, its mostly funded by tax/NI from the public. The initial 1948 investment was large and until 1951 almost crippled the then govt.
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