Nice to see my fan club is in full effect.

There we go, easy to impersonate DHG.

I have to say I’m glad I’m going over right-wing talking points. I like to think of myself as right-wing but every so often it’s nice to be reminded I’ve not slipped over

Also it’s good to see an online debate can happen without a slanging match, so thankyou for that.

N.B. I’m not conceding. I just don’t think we’re going to go any further without repeating myself

The consistent failures of the American healthcare service and its poor comparison to the NHS have long been dealt with here and elsewhere.

Hannan, when it comes to the NHS, is at the fringes of his own party, never mind with regards to how the people of Britain feel.

His idea of a healthcare service is very similar to the current American model, not the same but inspired by, which is odd considering how badly it is failing, aside that is from the government run bits which are far more efficient than there private sector bedfellows.

The fact is, you are re-treading right-wing talking points over here which have long been dismissed, for instance to pin the medical advances on the private sector, which is not completely true, many advances happen also in the public sector R&D, seemingly forgetting how costly medicine is in the US and how the pharmaceutical industry has done all in its power to hold back healthcare reform to hold onto its crucial profits.

There is no profit in healthcare, the fact that many nations have strived to do so sums up the deeply flawed thinking of free-market economics.

It quite simply doesn’t work.

Although I don’t have figures to hand, I highly doubt the US healthcare system “fails everyone”. Of course it’s not perfect, that’s why they’re having the debate, but our health service is far from perfect as well. Like I say though, and it’s clearly worth repeating, Hannan neither implicitly nor explicitly wants the Uk to adopt the US system. Mind, would you not say though, that despite his obvious anti-NHS feelings, that the amount of time he spends in the US means he is probably in a better position to comment on the US health system than us?

Also I couldn’t disagree more about the private sector being near the health service. Think of the advances in medical technology that have come from pharmaceutical companies. With no private sector involvement we wouldn’t have the kind of easy access to such as wide variety of basic drugs as we currently enjoy. Think of the amount of choice you have on offer in your local supermarket if you have a headache. Now add in popping into Boots and the selection on offer in the pharmacy should you need something stronger. I don’t see how a search for profit in this area of healthcare has resulted in a negative impact upon the user.

[35] I wouldn’t care to say why actually. I don’t want to put words in his mouth and I have no idea of the treatment required for those conditions nor whether private sector practice would be suitable/profitable. Leaving aside whether the private sector can set up systems to deal with multiple pathologies, what is wrong with an extension of these single issue ‘production lines’ (presumably the technical expression would be specialist clinics)? Why not take as much of the potentially profitable stuff out of the NHS and open it up to competition, and the consumer benefits that brings, while leaving in the stuff that the private sector doesn’t much want (maternity and A&E are the two frequently cited to me)?

Care to say why, Mark?

My guess would be there is little cash to be made from those with schizophrenia, or degenerative neurological conditions, say?

Look at where business already intersects with health in the UK.
It targets the worried well – or patients with a single pathology (like a dodgy hip) because it is far easier to set up a profitable production line.
Staggeringly non-NHS providers can’t even get this right.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/scotland-nhs-profit-treatment-centres

I don’t buy your arguments, free market good for some bits of a national health service, but not for others, when in reality, we only have to look at nations with large scale privatised medicine, like the US for example where Hannan is trolling his wears and we can see how badly it fails everyone.

Also, he does not implicitly propose an American system but his time spent over there and furthering the cause of what is a broken American healthcare system doesn’t bode well, thankfully, his views are not supported by the vast majority of British people.

And you’ll never convince me that the private sector should be anywhere near healthcare, there is no profit in health as far as I am concerned and a search for profit will only have negative impact upon the user, just as privatisation of other essential services has had I’m afraid.

[32] DHG

He does not propose any version of America’s system, piss poor or otherwise. He proposes a system where the money is in the hands of the user (in other words, the money is controlled neither by the state nor large insurance firms), and rich or poor have access to the same system. In the video he mentions the privatisation of the railways and this is actually quite a good point. If you consider the railway service, rich or poor can both buy a ticket on the same train. Now, a rich man has the ability to buy a first class ticket. “Unfair on the poor man” you might say, “why can’t he have the first class service too?”. But if you cancelled all first class carriages and made the whole train the same, the quality of the standard class service would suffer as the availability of first class influences both services available and quality of service throughout the whole train.

In healthcare this means that the argument is the market delivers a 5-star service for some and a 4-star service for the rest, as opposed to universal healthcare where the lack of competition provides a 3-star service for all. Yes, with a market you get that variability in service and yes, those with money will get the best service. The argument is that such varying standards are a price worth paying for a better overall quality of healthcare.

I have to disagree about Hannan being a great vice for reform. If you’re having a real debate then you want the reform side to be argued by someone who wants to see fundamental changes. Hannan certainly wants those changes and he has his own ideas about how the system ought to work. What you need is someone on the other side who is passionate about the NHS and can argue that the status quo represents the best health system, and will do so with statistics and reasoning.

Not grown up, or clever and the smiley face doesn’t hide the fact you’re a dick.

Mark M:

A health service just for the poor sounds like taking it apart to me? Universal healthcare is the aim here, not some piss poor version of America’s system and quite frankly, as I’ve said before, Hannan is not a great vice for reform, mainly because he hates the NHS so much, seems to like perpetuating myths about it and is generally not a fair and balanced voice of reason on the issue.

But this has already been said.

A telling point?
Why does Danny want the State to look after this group – could it be because there are fewer juicy financial pickings amongst ‘the poor’?

Surely it’s not because he lacks faith in the market to deliver such a service?

The GP consultation is an interesting one. Make any mention of charging to see a GP and you’re proclaimed a monster. Yet we do exactly the same in dentistry. £14.50 (or whatever it is these days) for a check up. It’s pretty much the only bit of the NHS I ever use and I pay at the point of use.

[24] Real DHG “Hannan, someone who wants to take the NHS apart”

Ok, so he wants fundamental reform of the health service. Is that such a bad thing? He repeats often that it should remain government backed for the poorest, and if you listen he doesn’t want us to move to a US style system. Can you expand on what you mean by ‘take the NHS apart’ and also explain why you think that is wrong? Let me repeat, Hannan still proposes state sponsored healthcare for the poor.

The problem is that it is not “free at the point of delivery”. Nothing of value is free. It may not be charged for at the point of delivery, but it has, nevertheless, to be paid for.

But, because it appears to be without cost, there is no disincentive to the individual taking advantage of the service and this, consequently, results in a massive waste of resources.

So, we have the outcome where we pay highly trained professionals hundreds of thousands of pounds to hand out prescriptions for anti-biotic and anti-depressant drugs to people that don’t need them and other highly trained professionals hundreds of thousands of pounds to put the pills in a box!

If we charged £5 for a consultation with a GP, the number of consultations would reduce by more than 50% and there would be no deterioration in the nation’s health.

Please don’t ask for evidence for any of the above- it’s a rant.

I just wanted to see how easy it was to impersonate DHG.

The burgeoning move toward de-regulation and marketisation has hardly yielded benefits for elderly people in private care homes over the last 10-15 years.

Experiences in the United States and Australia have shown the lack of political will to promote the interests of residents against the interests of the industry and its shareholders.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/323/7312/566

If Hannan is so keen on health markets why didn’t he tell the republican Fox audience about failings that have already occurred in the UK when care homes where taken over by entrepreneurs?

With regards to the use of the C-Word, I was merely echoing Paul Sagar on this one, the term seems fitting regarding my personal feelings about Hannan.

You don’t half pick rum allies pagar.

by arguing with patently false ideas you can give them mileage they would have long been denied.

Asserting that ideas are patently false but then not attempting to back up the assertion with data or argument is a form of intellectual fascism.

“You are wrong and and I am not going to tell you why that is as to do so might imply you could be right.”

By the way, please confirm that it really is you calling someone a “cunt” on this occasion as I don’t want to expose the shallowness of your thought process then discover I have been fooled by an imposter…..

Hannan is clearly an ideologue – who can forget his recent outing on Fox News when he gave such an unbalanced account of the NHS’s performance?
If he is so keen to kiss republican arse then I think he has to accept a bit of flak when he returns to his home in, err, Brussels.

Anyway, how can there ever be ‘debate’ with a politician who has ALREADY nailed his colours firmly to the (American) flag?

No, you miss the point, which is that many of us do not take Hannan seriously as a knowledgeable voice on the NHS or one that reflects any thing like a broad base of opinion.

A discussion on the NHS is all well and good but Hannan, someone who wants to take the NHS apart, is not really a beacon of outstanding thought on the subject matter is he?

And this thread isn’t about an NHS discussion, it is about Hannan once again being used by some in the US a a false spokesman on the NHS in order to prevent reform in the United States.

Can’t agree.

If it is your view that an idea is false and destructive, you should be prepared to demonstrate that by argument and evidence. Name calling is a poor substitute for rational debate.