Leave Sally alone!

The reason the Rethugs bash teh NHS is that they have idiotically assumed that NHS is in somewhy connected to Obama’s healthcare plan, when it is not.

I think that there is a possibility that they have chosen to focus specifically on the NHS, rather than any of the continental systems, because in many modern American movies the bad guys are marked, not by black cowboy hats, but by English accents.

MAY be deleted, I see. Comment 14 may need an edit (no need to delete)

“So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it’s a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=1

ObamaCare is bad news for Big Pharma, by Stephen Foley
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-brutal-truth-about-americarsquos-healthcare-1772580.html

Misconception over key issues at core of debate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/17/MNT4198FQ4.DTL&type=politics

Is this baggsy the stats?

Fuck me.

As for responsiveness…heh, only if you’ve the money rude boy and the deductibles are not too bad and you’ve covered the premiums and you’ve no previous health issues.

I’ve no idea why you’re fighting the US healthcare’s corner but I’d choose your allies a little better in future.

Cool.”

Well, I have just shown you the WHO stats that prove that haven’t I?

As I’ve been saying around and about the place (ever since I first started looking up the statistics actually) the thing the US system is number 1 at is “responsiveness”.

And that’s what makes it so expensive.

Also, to re-state something for the 18th time, the NHS is superiour to US care.

Cool.

Umm, no, not really. You see, the WHO stats are composites, they measure not only the level of care but also the distribution and the financing. In fact, the majority of their measurement is about the equality (or inequality) of care and financing rather than the actual level of care.

The NHS is 14th in the level of health care.

The stats are here.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/world_health_systems.html

The reason the Rethugs bash teh NHS is that they have idiotically assumed that NHS is in somewhy connected to Obama’s healthcare plan, when it is not.

The idea that just because other nations do not have the NHS model means that somehow the NHS is lesser, based on WHO stats only nations like France and Germany have superiour healthcare across the board in comparison to the NHS.

There are, arguably, two fundamental points to make for starters:

- The proposals for healthcare reform in America don’t amount to anything remotely like the NHS so we are left to speculate on just why are the Republicans bashing the NHS?

- Other west European countries have not adopted the NHS as a model but instead focus on social insurance schemes for healthcare costs without creating state monopolies of healthcare provision. By independent assessments, the healthcare systems of other west European countries rate better than the NHS in performance league tables.

It won’t be dismantled, but it could be destroyed. It would take about 10 years: slight underfunding, but still with big headline budgets. Restructure it every two years to keep managers chasing their tails, but avoid any meaningful reform that takes account of technological and social changes. Make sure there are 5 headline stories each year about medical tragedies, and make sure those 5 stories are ones that can be naturally spun as inherent in the nature of the system.

Then, once it’s unpopular, sigh and say ‘we tried so hard to keep it going, but you can’t fight economics’.

Replace it with something more profitable.

“By that measure then so is everyone over 65 in the US. For they are also insured by the govt under Medicare.

“The poor” are insured by Medicaid. Forgotten what the income level is now but it’s well above poverty level to be eligible.

By your definition above everyone in hte UK is without insurance, because we’re not insured by insurance companies but by the NHS.

I can see what you’re saying but it strikes me as being a very silly thing to say.”

Why is it silly to point out that a person you are attempting to lampoon is using the word “uninsured” to mean specifically (and quite reasonably) “not insured by an insurance company”, when your attempt to lampoon them relies upon using the word “uninsured” in a different (equally reasonable, but different) sense meaning “not insured by any entity whatsoever”?

For by making that distinction, it would seem that your attempt to lampoon is clearly misplaced and therefore does not hit its mark.

It may well seem like “a very silly thing to say” to you, but that may well say more about you than anything else…

Expenditure on health % of GDP

America 16%
France 11%
UK 8.4%
Singapore 3.4%

Life Expectancy at birth

France 81 years
Singapore 79.7 years
UK 79.1 years
America 79.1 years

Out of pocket spending by households as a % of private expenditure on health (Includes items not covered by insurance. E.g. some medicines or fees)

Singapore 93.8%
UK 92.1%
France 33.2%
US 23.9%

Expenditure on health per capita US$

America $7,290
France $3,601
UK $2,992
Singapore $1,228

Infant mortality per 1000 live births

US 6.7
UK 4.8
France 3.8
Singapore 2.1

Like I said, I doubt that it would actually have happened had a lesser man than Bevan been in charge of health (and everyone of the era was a lesser man than Bevan, do remember). It took both boldness & imagination to devise the system settled upon (state ownership of the hospitals, an idea which seemingly emerged from Bevan’s own head). But the Conservatives were supposedly in favour, the electorate just decided that Labour were the best lot to implement the Report. Quite rightly.

As for Gove, yes, he is a loathsome oik. The thought of him in power disgusts & terrifies me.

I think the Conservatives voted against the setting up of the NHS. They only kept it going because it was so popular. Many of their own supporters love the NHS, but the political class of the Conservative party hate the NHS. Always have done.

The Observer today has a front page lead about other Tory MPs who want to destroy the NHS. They include that supercilious, goggle eyed twat Michael Grove. You don’t get more arrogant than him. Cameron’s claim that it is only Hannan , is bullshit. Many of his own front bench want to destroy the NHS.

.It would also interesting to know how many Tory MPS are taking money from the American health care companies who have a vested interest in destroying the NHS. I wonder if Conservative home is taking funding from these copmpanies. The companies have been pouring huge amounts of corporate money into Canada to try to destroy their system.

As it happens I do agree that the NHS came about under a set of unique circumstances (a cross-party consensus that one was necessary combined with the visionary drive of Nye Bevan, the greatest British politician to obtain power) but I don’t really see what that has to do with the article.

So it is open to all to say what they like.

While you are very correct, Sally – the right have yet to come out and say what their proposals are so all can debate them.

Odd that keeping them quiet seems to confirm that they want a US style system – I know some who are very close to me who say that they do.

When this is pointed out to them, with the additional fact that all the wounded soldiers who return from war get govt funded health care, along with all those idiot , hypocritical Washington politicians who also get govt funded health care they say, “well I don’t claim to no all the facts, but I don’t want to live in Russia.” Stupid does not even begin to describe these sheeple.

Another interesting thing about this debate in America is that once again it reveals the total bullshit of the so called ‘right to life movement.’ They may want to save the fetus,but once it comes out of the womb and gets cancer “well fuck you, I don’t want to save your life,”

But The American right does victim status like no other in the world. They whine like the little tiity ass babies that they are. I see that the British Right wing has adopted this rather unappealing trait. Dale and Montgomeire have become real whiny titty ass babies when someone points out that they talk shit.