Bye now!

Bye bye now!

You would make a better case without all the ‘twatting’, ‘cocking’, ‘fucking’, more ‘twatting’ and general abuse.

No I am not defending nor attacking Hannan: I’m just interested in what he had to say and reading some sensible criticism of it. Adult criticism.

If that is happening elsewhere then please provide a link. Thanks.

You should have just retreated, evidence has laready been provided elsewhere but your dogmatic and tedious defence of the twat has meant that the facts will have to be re-released on you but I doubt then you’ll crawl off and hide, you’ll reject the facts or somehow try and defend the twat in another way. Bless you.

Hanna stated that “the NHS produces some of the worst health outcomes in the industrialised world. Britain is the Western state where you’d least want to have cancer or a stroke or heart disease” but he is horribly wrong, in his constituency alone life expectency and success rates against those two diseases have gone up. Nevermind the fact that in every measure of healthcare success, life expectency, infant mortality, number of beds, number of doctors, number of nurses, the UK is near the top of the tables and in all cases bar one above the US.

To quote the right-leaning Journal of the American Medical Association:

“US residents are much less healthy than their English counterparts and these differences exist at all points of the SES distribution … The US population in late middle age is less healthy than the equivalent British population for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, lung disease, and cancer … These differences are not solely driven by the bottom of the SES distribution. In many diseases, the top of the SES distribution is less healthy in the United States as well.”

And:

“With the sole exception of cancer, there exists a sharp negative gradient across both education and income groups in both countries … As a result, country differences are larger and tend to be more statistically different at the bottom of the social hierarchy than at the top. Level differences between countries are sufficiently large that individuals in the top of the education and income strata in the United States have comparable rates of diabetes and heart disease as those in the bottom of the income and education strata in England.”

The key lie by Hannan though was the nonsense, already dismissed here but as you blindly insist on not just fucking off and defending ‘your man’, that: “Outside Westminster, the old incantations are losing their magic. … Yes, all three parties are committed to the NHS … I wonder whether, as on tax and borrowing, public opinion hasn’t overtaken the Westminster consensus”.

Even if we ignore anecdotal evidence of the public response to NHS bashing, even the right-wing media’s leap to the defence, Hannan is lying that the UK people hate the NHS and do not want it.

Let’s just take one study of 3,000 people by YouGov that asked the following: “The NHS is sixty years old this year. Which of the following best describes your attitude to it?
(a) Whatever problems the NHS may have, its commitment to free treatment for everyone means it is still one of our great national symbols: 70%
(b) The NHS was a good idea for its time but we now need a different way of running modern healthcare provision: 25%
(c) The NHS was a bad idea from the start and it should be abolished and replaced with something different: 1%
(d) Don’t know: 3%”

The party breakdown was as follows(%): Labour voters were 80-15-1-4.

Conservative voters were 56-39-3-2.

LibDems were 79-13-3-5.

The man is an idiot, spouting untruths to an idiotic audience, your blind and silly defence of a fool is odd but next time I’d suggest you’d choose and ally that isn’t a cock.

So you don’t like his punctuation. What do YOU think of his haircut ? His shoes ? How about his socks ?

A lot of bloggers start with the MAJOR criticisms of a politician. Detailed point-by-point argument about what is wrong with his policy or his speech or his philosophy. This seems to be absent on this blog. Instead we get vague generalisations and ad-hominem tosh. And nit-picking.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Your points are vague generalisations. Could you please post something that he said that was FACTUALLY incorrect. For example if there is another organisation that is really the 3rd largest employers in the world. Or if the death rate from MRSA infections is NOT into the thousands.

Your post #103 is only one step removed from simply saying “I don’t like his haircut”.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/americans-without-health-insurance-attack-plan-to-give-them-health-insurance-200908141981/

The author is described as a writer and journalist.

The article comprises 950 words in a single paragraph.

If you can find a longer paragraph in any UK newspaper in the last twelve months, I’ll buy you a pint.

Jack Hughes:

Hannan lied about public feeling about the NHS, Hannan lied about how ineffective it is, Hannan lied about how much it costs and the value that is extracted, crucially he misjudged the mood towards the NHS and as his attack had no substance, that has left him with a ticking off and a dismissal as eccentric.

John A:

We are all very glad that you think that Hannan is wonderful, you seem to be basing this wonder on the fact that he speaks his mind, which is great but a low common demominator, esp. as his mind is not much worth speaking.

As for more people like Hannan in politics, no, bad idea, becuase he is an idiot with views that do not represent the vast majority of the UK. So yes to freedom of expression but yes also to freedom to take apart idiots who express their terrible ideas.

“And he doesn’t duck a debate.”

That is not a mark of genius, esp. when your ideas are that bad.

“I suggest you ask him to a debate here on the relative merits of the UK and Singaporean health systems.”

I for one would love that, considering that the Singaporean system is by no means perfect and riddled with flaws.

As for Medicare going bust, that is what the reforms are for and you mention tort reform, the last bastion of any right-winger losing an argument, when it would be far easier to just reform the healthcare system itself.

They’re talking “death panels” as soon as you try extending Medicare, I’m not surprised that it’s difficult for them to go as far the UK.

That’s because the US Medicare system is going to go bust. It’s a government sponsored Ponzi scheme that will not withstand the Baby Boom generation drawing on it.

Something has to be done about the costs of US Healthcare and the first thing that needs to happen is tort reform because large amounts of money are being extorted from healthcare through frivolous lawsuits.

And he doesn’t duck a debate.

I suggest you ask him to a debate here on the relative merits of the UK and Singaporean health systems.

Maybe even just 3 things he said that are not true if you are too lazy to do the whole lot.

The article and the comments are just a load of bluster and ad-hominem garbage.

This is not simply jumping on the bandwagon either. This overwhelming response to Hannan’s remarks is a true reflection of majority feeling, something that draws together people of all political persuasions. Hannan is certainly allowed his views but odd we do not see them aired in this country.

The Times, 5 July 1948

The NHS hasn’t been adopted in our form in many countries largely because of the immense expense and difficulty involved in setting it up. Remember Bevan had to ‘stuff their mouths with gold’. The medical lobby is powerful and wealthy and holds the best industrial relations bargaining chip going.

Sunny, thanks for your generous words.

…despite [ukliberty] being right-wing )

I saw the smiley but I’m not sure how right-wing you think I am! My lefty friends say I’m right-wing and my righty friends say I’m left wing.

…the majority of Britons aren’t unhappy with the NHS otherwise it wouldn’t be such a loved institution.

So perhaps a good starting base would be to use facts (not Dan Hannan facts, but objective facts) and point out where problems lie within the system and what an alternative could be…?

I’m not convinced by the right that the system needs overhaul. The people of this country who use the system don’t buy it either.

I don’t think much of the appeal to numbers / popularity. I agree with the “starting base”.

I have no feelings one way or the other for the NHS. But as I understand it the majority of people support the NHS in principle – indeed healthcare is one of the five most important topics at election time, those five far more important than any other, and therefore a party suggesting getting rid of it had better have something brilliant in the wings if they hope to be in government.

But to claim that people don’t see problems is inaccurate, I think. For one thing, I’m sure everyone here has heard reports of a preponderance of managers (perhaps Parkinson’s law applies). Chris Dillow, among others, criticises managerialism in the NHS and says we should consider worker co-ops.

I believe the NHS IT programme was not conceived with our interests in mind but those of its political masters. And, like so many other projects, it is later and much more costly (by an order of magnitude, that is, of the order of ten times as much) than we were led to believe, because they didn’t abide by the advice of the NAO (among others) on why IT projects are commonly late and more costly than anticipated. That is our money that could have been better saved or spent elsewhere. I think we should wrestle control of the NHS away from politicians.

Then there was the article, linked to by Nick, about John Petri. If it is accurate then it describes something quite shocking (but not surprising). It seems a fairly simple change that would have significant, positive outcomes. I suspect that there are a number of similar opportunities.

There are wider things to look at too. Are the externalities of food, tobacco, alcohol etc covered by taxes? Well, tobacco is, I think – the revenue from tobacco exceeds the cost of treating tobacco-related illnesses. Alcohol could be a different matter (I have been unable to find figures) – revenue is about £20bn but the cost of treating alcohol related illnesses and the social costs of alcohol (such as policing alcohol related violence) could well exceed it. I like a drink, and I’d like everyone to be well treated, but I don’t want people taking the piss.

Recently there has been much criticism of the Swine-Line. The Grauniad takes contributions from front-line health workers that are usually worth a read – none, to my knowledge, say there are no problems (well, that wouldn’t make for an interesting article).

And so it goes.

Indeed the NHS is such a huge and complex organisation I would be stunned if there are no changes that could be made that save money, not harm patient outcomes and may even improve them. And I think everyone concedes that the more money has been spent, the less value we have seen from it.

Assuming for the sake of argument there are opportunities for improvement, the next question is how to realise them. It seems to me that many on the left (and New Labour) – but not all – believe the optimal solution stems from yet more top-down control, more rules and regulations, more box-ticking. It would be an understatement to say I don’t believe that has a chance of being the optimal solution.

Most people seem to support the principle of taxpayer funded healthcare free at point of use. I like that principle too – so there is common ground on which to build. Where we part ways here is how to deliver it and how to make change. I think evidence-based policy, as opposed to policy-based evidence, would inform the changes. I think people on the ground often know better than people at the centre. Incentives matter.

There is also the question of what to deliver. Nick made a good point earlier about equality that I don’t think commenters have substantively responded to: “Is it better that everyone get poor or no healthcare, or that everyone gets some and some get even better?”

I don’t believe that, in this context, equality is something we should aspire to for its own sake. Rather, my ideal is a good standard of healthcare below which no-one should be allowed to fall and I’m not particularly bothered if the rich can afford better (it was ever thus). I suspect that here too is where I and many on the left part ways.

HURRAH!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/14/health-nhs