2024 UK politics - now with Labour in charge
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So i would guess the following;
The UK introduces the insurance based system.
It works OK.
Prices get too expensive, so some price cap is introduced.
This price cap doesn't keep up with market conditions, so half the providers go bust and half get bailed out.
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You still haven't explained why. How do you encourage people to pay more for their insurance if a fixed standard is set by regulation? What extra do they get if they do pay more?
If insurance providers are competing, surely there is still pressure to cut costs.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Getting elected on a tax raising mandate would be hard but do you really think getting elected on a private healthcare mandate would be easier? The level of debate would be awful.
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono1 -
I think we should have some form of National Insurance to fund the National Health Scheme.
It could be means tested.
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lol I see have hit NHS brain rot. This is a system that is working more effectively for 100s millions of people, but apparently it’s unworkable and fantasy land.
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I mean, I agree Brits woud literally rather die than reform the NHS and people cannot debate the system seriously in this country.
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I don't think nhs reform would be especially unpopular (depending on what it is obviously) but if you're proposing compulsory private insurance, you may as well increase tax or NI - it'll be labelled a stealth tax by every opposition party anyway.
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Slightly ironic that he voted Labour, but with an attitude like that...
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Have you ever watched French TV it like going back to the last century.
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A winning argument 🙄.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
New Avatar?
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I think the central issue with Brexit was that it required a disconnection from pragmatism and truth-telling to sell it to the electorate as a feel-good, viable option. Once that Rubicon had been passed, with Agent Johnson as its facilitator, the Conservative Party of old had been irrevocably broken.
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The outcomes across the channel are better.
NHS is more efficient per pound spent but is missing the pounds.
I think without substantially more money that gap will grow and the NHS will continue to fail like it is and get materially worse.
I don’t know how many of you have had treatment abroad. I’ve broken a bone in the US and had a serious problem with my eye in the Netherlands and I cannot tell you *how much better* the care was. Absolutely worlds apart.
This sticking fingers in your ears and shouting nananana because America has crackpot system won’t solve this.
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Sacred cows aside, I am sceptical that this govt can do much more with the EU unless they get serious about “dynamic alignment” or joining the CU.
EU is very transactional and rules based and bring friendly won’t change that.
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Did the Netherlands move from an NHS style system to their current system?
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That ain't exactly rocket science. All health care systems face that problem, new medical techniques and drugs, more people surviving, that's gonna costs more money.
Anyway, we're gonna score one more than you.
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Mood music first. A few dates and a bit of mild flirting. See where that leads. Nothing serious, you understand, and definitely no sex yet.
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This is the ProEU version of “we’ll negotiate unilaterally with members and they’ll cave”
I am all for better relations with Europe, but it is fanciful that it will change anything EU related unless the govt is prepared to make political trade offs. I don’t think they are.
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Indeed, I too suspect they are not ready for that.... yet. But equally I expect them to try to find ways to nudge things in the right direction, and to try to work out what they can achieve within the current political situation without alienating too many of the people whose support got them into government, so that they get a second term. It's at that point I would expect the terms of commitment to get more serious, if what's at stake is more clearly spelt out and understood. If Starmer's going to budge on his 'never' stance, he's going to need justification which he can spell out to the electorate.
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All you’re doing is making the case for more money to be spent on the NHS. No-one is disputing that is needed, the point is that whether you go down the route in a private insurance scheme or raising taxes people will need to pay more and any Government trying to invest what is needed will be hammered for raising taxes and / or privatising the NHS. Like anything that is kept in use with insufficient money being spent on it, it is becoming more and more expensive to keep it working at all.
I do agree that one of the biggest issues is that we have been indoctrinated into deifying the NHS and any criticism or suggestion of significant change gets portrayed as an attack on the hard working doctors and nurses.
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Interesting snippet in the Rest is Politics interview with the former Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt on the Danish model for state pension.
Pension age is subject to regular review based on average life expectancy minus15 years.
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
Yeah I am making a case for spending more money. But I am arguing the state owned model means it is permanently underfunded and that is going to become more and more problematic.
I don't think you can trust voters to give the NHS the money it needs. So you need to take it out of their hands.
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Has it been a while?
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They spend more.
I've had treatment in Canada and it was brilliant, but I did have to pay for an ambulance.
But when I came back to a mid-2000s Blair UK, treatment was also very good here. Depending on where it was in the system, you might need to look past some rather aged buildings, but that is a cosmetic difference.*
I also had a LOT of treatment for a very bad ankle injury around 2011-12 - we are talking about 15 hours' surgery in total and months of physio - 2 mornings a week for about 6 months, then tapering off.
The contrast with the US is interesting. I corresponded for a time with a chemist who I found online with the same injury (whilst in a hospital bed, researching potential outcomes), and I remember him saying how expensive physio was once he'd maxed out his coverage. So there, not only do they pay more, but it pays for less overall treatment. Not surprising that what you do get seems better.
I DO think that money in the NHS is squandered and I DO think an insurance top-up model is a potential way to go. But I do not have any actual evidence on efficiencies within all of these models.
What you also don't consider RC in your uncharacteristically superficial argument is how you get there from the current NHS to wherever you want to go. It isn't like you can parachute a Dutch model in, even if you wanted to. There has to be a careful transition.
Certainly any government that first introduces the concept of a regulated and/or employer contributed (for example) NHS dental insurance scheme, is risking electoral problems and hysterical accusations of breaking up the NHS, but not from me. Nor though, do I give your silver bullet argument much credibility.
*If you maintain or replace them as necessary, rather than let the ceilings fall in
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Yeah it's an effective market, but you can't vote out your health insurers. You can only chose from the providers who pass the bar to make it to the market place.
So when they raise prices, whatcha gonna do.
The affordability criteria can still be in place and I think the state can pay for a portion, or all of, the poorer people's insurance, depending on the circumstance.
Yes there are pressures to cut costs but there are as many pressures to improve the care and service too.
Let's face it, unless you are seriously ill, you get treated incredibly badly by the NHS. There is no alternative. You just have to suck it up.
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Just imagine how good Britain could be if only it too was a petrostate?
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Alas those tails winds are behind the nation.
Danish and especially Nordic politicians play politics on easy mode.
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Can I ask, RC, how much of your adult life have you spent living in the Netherlands? I ask because I don't think you can really form a comparative view until you experience the entirety of an economy. You can't say whether you feel like the Dutch (or German, or Canadian blah) model is good value until you put that into the context of the rest of the cost of living. I don't think that you either know this, or know that you don't.
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Take a look yourself. It's bar charts so I don't think even you would object.
I don't know why you are OK with having worse health outcomes than comparable countries? And if you are not, what do you think is behind that gap?
I am delighted however that we can no longer compare any other ownership model of any other system in a society unless we've lived there. That really narrows the field.
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