Those on the left of British politics thought they could make inroads this week; perhaps thinking after Daniel Hannan's intervention on the NHS and Alan Duncan's 'living on rations' gaffe, the voters would again turn back to Labour. The latest opinion polls do not suggest this is the case. Now Conservatives are being accused of polarising the debate on the NHS. This comes from a party who openly says you are a right-wing ideologue if you think there are other choices available to provide universal healthcare for Britons. Labour regards the NHS as their baby and will always stifle debate on any alternative. It is their pride and joy and from its birth in 1948, Labour has made sure it has become a sacred cow in British politics.
British people are remarkably uninformed of other healthcare systems around the world. This is once again part of the left-wing plan. Socialist leaders want their fellow citizens to live in blissful ignorance, thinking life in other countries is far worse. The same goes for healthcare. David Cameron states the Conservative Party is 100% behind the NHS. I, on the other hand, am firmly behind a universal system of healthcare that offers real choice to its citizens and provides the best quality affordable healthcare in the world. Look how Singapore deals with the health of its citizens and then tell me how many are dying prematurely and are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills? I'll save you the trouble, as this is not an issue in Singapore. Nor is it an issue in Germany, another country providing universal healthcare, but who never implemented a system like the NHS.
Conservatives stifling debate? Yet another lie from the left.
7 comments:
You are absolutely right. When the British first started venturing out to the continent in the 1960s, they saw how much better the restaurants were and demanded a better service and food here - which they got on the whole. Sadly, they rarely had to visit these countries healthcare systems; had they done so they would have been equally surprised. The NHS needs a root and branch reform and only the Conservatives can do this with a large majority. It will still be "free" but the consumer i.e., us needs to be able to choose where we go and by whom we are seen. All those non-medical pen pushers need to get the push as well.
Maybe the debate would start to be more informed and reasoned if both the main parties admitted they were quarrelling over the English NHS not the 'British' one. New Labour has reformed, indeed privatised, the NHS in England while leaving the 'socialised' system in place in the other countries of the UK. It's time for the English people to be offered the choice openly of whether they want more of the same from the Tories (or from Labour), or want a better- and more public sector-funded, traditional NHS in England like those that have been retained in the other UK countries.
Anon: Thank you.
Britologywatch: I take your points, but what we still have in England too is a state-run healthcare system. All hospitals are owned by the state. All doctors, nurses and the rest of the 1.3 million employees are employed by the state.
Yes, Andrew; I was being a bit Sunday afternoon-imprecise there. I meant to say 'introduced a degree of privatisation and market principles' rather than 'privatised', such as: the fact that some of the newly built NHS hospitals are not owned - at least not freehold - by the public sector but by the private companies that built them; and some staff work for both the NHS and the private sector. Indeed, some patients can obtain private treatments in NHS facilities. Plus I'm sure Labour wanted to introduce, but don't know if they have introduced, the policy the Tories have also included in their plans: that if a particular essential treatment isn't available on the NHS within reasonable travelling distance from the patient's home, the NHS has to pay for the patient to obtain the treatment from the private sector.
I'm not necessarily opposed to such reforms, at least not all of them. But the terms of the debate are completely skewed. Labour has introduced more market principles into the English NHS than the Tories ever did. So it's a case of whether we want more of the same (under Labour or the Tories), or to revert to the kind of traditional, fully state-funded NHS they still have elsewhere in the UK. For Labour to pretend that's what still exists in England under the cover of misleading references to 'Britain', and that that's what their policies are for England (as opposed to the rest of Britain), is an outright lie. But the Tories need to be more honest about their plans, too.
"This is once again part of the left-wing plan. Socialist leaders want their fellow citizens to live in blissful ignorance, thinking life in other countries is far worse."
If you wish to improve the standard of debate and discourse then paranoid conspiracy theories are hardly the best way to do it. When elements of the left put forth arguments that the only reason the public don't agree with them is they they are being hopelessly duped by a sinister elite, they are (rightly) attacked as elitist and out of touch. The same applies here.
There is no "left-wing plan", merely a competing set of ideas of which yours has so far failed to win public support.
PS There is no illuminati either.
I can't see what was wrong with the GP system.
The debate is essentially, Andrew, because what Hannan has done is to put the NHS on the political agenda. Conservative policy is to support the NHS tooth and nail (no dental reference there intended), but to reform it to make a national institution better. After all, the poor, working class and lower middle class depend on the NHS; and they'll trust the Tories on it, while Labour has done nothing to improve the system but has just overbureaucratised and politicised it.
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