What masquerades in this country as intelligent debate is a joke.
I am not a fan of the NHS, but I am a fan of universal healthcare. I wouldn't wish the American system on Britain and likewise, I wouldn't wish the British system on America. I don't love the NHS, as I find it impossible to love a healthcare system. I love my family, not an institution. I am not a right-wing ideologue because I think Germany - which has free at the point of use healthcare - delivers better value and better choice for its citizens.
As to Paul Burgin - of the Mars Hill Blog - who has compiled a list of Tory 'eccentrics' who have attacked the NHS, I have only one thing to say: Grow Up! You may look back at the post-war Attlee government with a gooey nostalgia, but I regard it as the biggest smash and grab raid in British political history. There are many ways of delivering healthcare for everyone and the NHS is an example of how not to do it. As I have previously said, it is cumbersome, top-heavy with managers and doesn't deliver true patient choice. The sheer amount of money wasted on bureaucracy would - under a better system - deliver far better healthcare. But, never mind, this wonderful system of ours, whose model no other country has adopted, will continue to groan under the strain and more and more billions of pounds will be thrown at it in the vain hope it will perform better. Labour will continue to tell us all to be grateful we have the NHS; how better off we are than the French and the Germans. Life will continue and the left-wing ideologues will claim another victory in their defence of socialised medicine.
I have taken some stick and abuse over the last few days, not that it bothers me; it's all part of political life. I have been accused of many things that are untrue. I have been told I will cost the Conservatives a general election victory. I have been told I am wrong on every level. I have been told I am out of touch, all because I don't think the state should have a near monopoly on healthcare provision. Because I think we should have a public/private mix, delivering affordable healthcare for all our citizens, you would think I have been found guilty of child abuse. As I said in my opening sentence, what masquerades in this country as intelligent debate is a joke
6 comments:
Well said, Andrew.
Hope you vote in the poll then, Andrew, on the NHS. There is a lot at stake at the moment and the most ridiculous things are being put about - I've been fighting them for days too.
Perhaps, in order to up its intelligence quotient, you and other participants in the debate could start referring to the NHS in question correctly as the English NHS, not the British one. Post-devolution, there are four NHS's in Britain; and the one the New Labour government has been running, and the one a David Cameron-Conservative government would set about reforming, is the English NHS.
Under a Tory government, you're far more likely to get your mixed private-public English NHS, if the truth be told. It would be good if the Tory leadership (David Cameron, Andrew Lansley, etc.) owned up to their real plans for the English NHS (which they have in fact outlined in policy documents), which do involve a restrained measure of privatisation, rather than ducking the issue by appeals to the principles of a British NHS that no longer exists.
The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland will doubtless continue with their socialist NHS's at the English taxpayers' expense (unless Cameron has plans for Barnett we don't know about); but the English NHS is set for reform, I'd say. Nice if the Tories would say so, too.
Nice that our friends on the left are so keen on witch hunts.
Something you should read ...
Harriet Harman's Lies About Rape Exposed Today
http://www.harrietharmansucks.com
Best
I'm sure that you consider that your blog is intelligent debate...
everything's relative...
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