See Becky your missing out the big picture. Africa is screwed over in so many ways that using it as an example of private healthcare is misleading once again. America healthcare has been screwed over for many years with news laws and insurance regulation that it's another misleading example.
I personally don't believe healthcare is a right because to gain that right you have to infringe on someone else's rights and liberty. I don't believe we should allow the state to have this amount of power. I find it somewhat odd you're happy for the state to have complete control your health and well being. In effect own your body. So they have all that data and information and all that power, yet you object to ID cards. Whether you like it or not Becky the NHS is a product of the state and not the people and has more information on you than any ID proposed. And as you believe in democracy so much you have to accept some day the 'people' may elect an unfavourable party or leader who has free access to all that information which they can use for whatever reason
I fully understand why people support the NHS however, it is admirable.
Also in practically and realistic terms financially the NHS is a huge burden on the country. If we don't tackle the huge expansion and over-spend of the NHS we will continue to go down the road of debt oblivion.
It's all good and well having free healthcare but at the cost of being able to afford food and a decent living standard? For some, for many, it's a price worth paying.. but not for me. At the very least reform of the NHS has to be considered.
I agree needs to be rebuilt from scratch! It is however frustrating that people use America as an example of the failure of private healthcare when it fact it's anything but private healthcare
The hospitals are for the most part privately run corporations, but they do get extra funding to give basic/emergency treatment to uninsured people. It isn't as private as it is made out to be because of the interference from the Nixon era which only made a lot of rich people richer. Most noticeably pharmaceutical companies.
The thing is, they don't. The govt tried to get the nation's medical details into another Big Brother database, which was made to be opt-out rather than opt-in. Because most people only care about who's going to win Britain's Got Talent, virtually everyone would automatically be opted in. Fortunately a small enough stink was raised that it's temporarily on hold at the moment. Some people don't care about it, but when you consider it, it's a hugely significant shift. Your medical records, looked after and updated by your GP, would be transferred and handed over to the control of the state. The idea of central government needing control and ownership of the nation's health records is one which I find very creepy.
The NHS is in a poor state, make no mistake. Billions have been thrown at it by the NuLab govt, albeit much of it through PFI which our grandkids will be paying for, with little regard to efficiency and planning. However, the thought of a purely private system is horrible. The free nature of the NHS does make some people take less responsibility for their own wellbeing - you can generally spot them, they're the ones lined up outside the lung ward sitting in the wheelchairs, having to go outside for a smoke. Makes me wanna grab a fire extinguisher to put out their fags, then bat 'em round the head with it. But most people do take care of themselves, and the NHS is there for them too. Like me. I'm pretty healthy (bar occasionally overdoing it on the old vino) and go to the gym and keep in shape and don't eat much in the way of crap. But when I overdid it in the gym, I damaged my knee cartilage and the NHS fixed it for me.
Don't get me wrong, there's lots of downsides to the NHS - the public sector inefficiencies, some appalling staff, astonishing headcount of employees, the simple financial cost - but Britain would be a lot worse off today without it.
My wife is an order processor for the NHS. As an example of some of the (IMO shocking) things that get payed for with NHS funding, a year or so back, she put through an order request for a new Bentley for one of the boss' at University Hospital Coventry.
Nuff said about the NHS really...
The NHS isn't free what you on about? It costs 100 billion a year
In terms of the database. They already have it, the data is there. The function and information is there ready to be mis-used this database is only an extension of the information they already have access too.
In it's current form the NHS is unsustainable. The attitude of the public however makes it next to impossible to make any real reforms. I don't agree the country is better off because of the NHS as it is.
The annual NHS budget is about 100 billion and we have a budget deficit of 160 Billion. This deficit is increasing out national debt and the burden of the NHS is causing real issues. If we lived in a society that strongly believed in personal responsibility and liberty, cuts in the NHS would be much easier to digest. Now we face an economic disaster and the mass dependence on the state (helped on by the NHS) means the country is in for a very tough few decades. I am realistic and know the majorities view on the NHS however it isn't beyond reform... which it does need. Efficiency saving and less paper work won't fill the hole
And further more, I find it strange that someone like Becky can fully endorse the NHS yet object to ID Cards. The NHS was created in a war time along with national ID cards funnily enough. How can someone object to state ID cards yet fully endorse the NHS when the NHS holds as much, if not more information on an individual than any ID card.
With electoral reform proposed by the Lib-Dems we probably would see more parties like the BNP gain 10s maybe 100s of seats. So I do find it someone surprising people are so comfortable having a complete state monopoly on health care and all that goes with it which could easily be open for abuse if got into the wrong hands. It's the arrogance of those who ignore this threat which is most alarming. I guess some people disregard history and replace it with bold idealistic fantasy that we're immune from tyranny and the like
Then why am I placing my vote for the strongest party who isn't a tyrrant?
Labour and Conservative have agreed on all major freedom restricting policy changes since the build up to Iraq. They are tyrants, the war was illegal, what they've done and gotten away with since would horrify those who have died fighting for a free Britain.
You have a very different perspective in the way you look at politics, whilst demonstratably misinformed in places - such as your linear view of the political wings - you do raise some valid points, the NHS is expensive.
Do we cut out the NHS to save ourselves a fortune?
Let's look at what would happen, firstly, we'd loose the NI contribution from our pay checks - I don't have figured to hand to demonstrate what the differential between what is raised from NI and what is paid to the NHS is, but with that gone we'd be expected to get private healthcare. Private healthcare which would need to recoup the losses and debts it incurres buying up the social healthcare network, losses it would pass directly onto the consumer.
So a hike in healthcare costs, a loss of a substantial tax revenue stream, and a loss of a critical service we'd then need to replace with a private alternative.
Followed by which our healthcare becomes profit driven, like America has so brilliantly proven leads to cynical bean counters. A reduction in quality of care, and for many people the inability to cover insurance fees - people ARE going to die if you get your way, that would otherwise live. Britain, which currently has the 17th best healthcare in the world, would sink to Americas level, 54th or so, except we've less technology and less funding so probably a bit further behind America and the country it battles with on the healthcare charts: Cuba.
Brilliant idea, where do I sign?
The simple facts are that you can't fix all the countries problems in one go, and infact, there will always be problems. Chosing a political party is a matter of chosing which set of problems you think will hurt the least, or the party who's manifesto appeals to the aspects of your beliefs which you feel are most important to you.
The rest you have to stomach. For you Alan, you're vote I understand is based on keeping out those troublesome French.
Personally i'm focused more closer to home, and you can dress up in shock tactics all you like - but we've had European interferance for years and it's not about to change any time soon, none of the main parties are offering a significant alternative anyway. So as I said earlier, fix one problem at a time.
Start with establishing a democracy here, then worry about a democracy in Europe. With the major European states already having proportional representation (i'm actually not sure about France, but as far as I know the only other country not to have it is Monaco).
You can't win a war in a day, you have to pick your battles. This election is a good chance to get rid of a tyrant, reverse our suirvellance police state and retake our freedom of speech and judiciary which is currently in the process of erosion, it's a good time because of the momentum the Lib Dem's have to bring about geniune change, even if they'll likely only pull it off with a hung parliament because of the failed first past the post system we have currently.
Once we've got democracy here, maybe next time there will be a party strong enough to tackle Europe.
I won't continue with the NHS debate because it will be fruitless and your continual use of America as an example of private healthcare is mis-informed and naive at best.
You call for democracy and proportional representation, which is fair enough, but I do hope you are prepared for what will follow. The BNP will most likely gain seats and influence whether you like it or not. This clear and likely danger is why I object to massive state institutions like the NHS. They allow far too great state dependence and state power which can be abused. The use of ID cards in the Rwandan genocide is a clear and frightening example we should learn from,.
America is the only passable example of non-socialized healthcare in the first world. The only ways in which it's not privatized, prior to the recent legislation, is Medicare/Medicaid (which are there because no private company will give people medical services if they can't afford to pay for them) and as P5YcHoM4N said, the funds that the gov't gives to hospitals to cover the treatment of the uninsured (again, paying for those who can't pay). Any privatized system will need these safeguards to protect the poor.
The whole US system isn't a fully privatized system as Becky was suggesting, that's my simple point. You have various laws regulating insurance and what not like not being able to buy insurance across state lines. Private to me means free from government and next to zero regulation. What you have in the states is insurance companies and governments in cahoot with each other.
Realistically what I would suggest in the UK is looking at reforms with Singapore's system in mind
of course it's real it's how they got in last time. They've already published the results for Brighton and the election isn't for another 2 days yet. Kery4MP posted the count on Twitter, meenwhile Jack Straw has been greeting voters, also a criminal act. The whole thing is a shambles.
who and the what? Please tell me Brighton hasn't gone Green? I despise them more than Labour
Also another thing we need to look for. Gold hit a new high against the pound today as investors seek to protect themselves in the event of a hung parliament. I fully expect tough market conditions for the pound if that happens.
What I would love to know who are the 28% that are still saying they'd vote Labour? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? That's one thing we can agree on!
No the initial count has a strong majority for Labour, which you'd expect because it has quite a high postal vote registration.
The postal vote laws, when labour reworked them, where designed from the outset to make it impossible to detect election fraud. That's why the votes are mixed in with the secret ballot before being counted.
Unfortunately the returning officer in almost eery constituency is a party official, and they have a nasty habbit of tampering with the votes - hense Labour already know the postal vote counts across the country.
The system wa never designed to work, it was designed expressly and foremost as a system for vomiting electoral fraud.
1 in 4 registered voters are postal votes mostly in all the key marginals. Remember earlier I was talking about them needing 34% of the vote to maintain a majority, well, this is why they only need 9% of the popular vote.
Like I said, tyrants. The result of the election fraud investigations will depends not on the truth but who gets in power.
With all these suggestions of tactical voting by Labour the markets will be getting very worried indeed. a Lab-Lib coalition will most likely see this country dip into a major depression. aarrgghhhh!
Nah Becky it's much more serious than that and you know it. We haven't come out of recession. The Government printed 200,000,000,000 expanding the money supply by something stupid like 50% once you factor in fractional reserve banking. It makes me laugh when they say "inflation unexpectedly high" when in fact it's very much expected! With all this massive inflation the fact we can only muster a tiny .2% of GDP growth (figures that are fudged anyway) means we certainly haven't come out of any recession. We are still very much in recession. The only difference is we have racked up a shit load of debt and expanding the money supply.
Just look at gold as an indicator of confidence and you'll see it hit new highs against the pound. The alarming nature of how this whole situation is predictably playing out is quite scary. Not even the Cons/UKIP are even close to suggesting how serious of a position we are in.
This isn't an argument about Con/Lib/Lab this is much much much more serious than that! When Jim Rogers and Marc Faber says we're in trouble... you better stand up and listen! Certainly Liberal Democrat influence in Government is not going to help the situation at all. Investors and the money markets are hoping for a Tory win (not that it will be MUCH better) and if they doesn't happen we'll be in serious trouble. Whether you like it or not the Tories are the last hope for the economy. They rescued the economy in the 80s from the disaster of the 70s at their own detriment. Let's hope they can do it again (not that I have much faith)
This isn't propaganda scaremongering Becky... this is the cold hard reality and I think you and your Liberal chums (and many in the Conservatives too) need to wake up and smell the coffee.
And by the way the Liberal Democrats thought the Euro was a good idea and many passed off the idea that Greece was an economic disaster waiting to happen. So that's how much faith I have in their economic policies. Many were predicting a crisis in Greece and it was similarly disregarded as anti-EU propaganda nonsense. how very wrong they were and how wrong you are Becky on this specific point.
It's funny you know Everyone saying Libs will do this, Labour will do this, Tories will do that and eternal doom if the far left or right ever got in.
The badge may change, the colours may change and the decorators may have a nice pay day on the decor but nothing else does. The real power is held by the civil servants working behind the doors. They never change despite the government changing.
So you'll vote the party which has the worst economic (the current depression) and civil liberties (more CCTV cameras and surveillance than any country on earth) record of any Government in history? Please... what have they done that makes you want to vote for them. At least Becky can muster some form of argument for the Lib dems... but Labour? Why? So you support being
Lol, i was just fishing for a bite from Intrepid, i got one, my angling needs satisfied for another day
BTW, of course i couldn't vote for Labour, no-one should be in power for as long as they have been. But i think you're kidding yourself if you think another party will do things any differently. Life will still be shit, we will still be poor, and we'll still be pissed at the amount of people that get a free ride while we're out working 10 or so hours a day to pay for it...
Just quickly as I don't have much time, Intrepid, you spoke to me on the basis that I don't think were in financial crisis, I am awre of that, I've been talking about that for months in converstions with you including in this thread.
What I'm pointing out is that if lib dem get in versus Tory getting in it's not going to make the difference you claim.
OF COURSE the money markets want Tory to win, thy always do. Not one of those big time investors likes to pay more tax on their banked billions.
It is however frustrating that people use America as an example of the failure of private healthcare when it fact it's anything but private healthcare
