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UK Politics: Winter of Discontent


Werthead

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3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Stopping all donations to them as some people and businesses are doing does seem like a not-particularly-helpful reaction to the issue, though.

It was no doubt the point of he media campaign in the first place though. Oxfam has become rather inconvenient for some people...

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1 hour ago, A wilding said:


Another of my trigger points:

There are basically two options in the UK other than the NHS.

1) Pay for services as you use them. This basically is only practicable for the top 0.1% (which obviously includes all those Tory Grandees who want to get rid of the NHS).

2) Pay insurance to one of the private health care providers and hope. Probably about the top 10% can afford this (or get it as a job perk). In practice, in my opinion and anecdotal experience, lack of regulation makes this is little better than a scam. The companies will happily take 3 digit premiums per month, and provide certain limited services, but if you develop anything expensive they will do all they can to avoid paying for it and also to try to get you off their books entirely. Even when they do provide services, there tends to be very little depth to their expertise - you hear stories of patients being rushed to NHS casualty because something has gone wrong.

 

So basically private healthcare and insurance   in the UK pretty much an expensive flipping disaster. 

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2 hours ago, A wilding said:


Another of my trigger points:

There are basically two options in the UK other than the NHS.

1) Pay for services as you use them. This basically is only practicable for the top 0.1% (which obviously includes all those Tory Grandees who want to get rid of the NHS).

2) Pay insurance to one of the private health care providers and hope. Probably about the top 10% can afford this (or get it as a job perk). In practice, in my opinion and anecdotal experience, lack of regulation makes this is little better than a scam. The companies will happily take 3 digit premiums per month, and provide certain limited services, but if you develop anything expensive they will do all they can to avoid paying for it and also to try to get you off their books entirely. Even when they do provide services, there tends to be very little depth to their expertise - you hear stories of patients being rushed to NHS casualty because something has gone wrong.

 

Dont forget an absolute shit-ton of unnecessary tests and procedures

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Well, at least we know now how Brexiteers are going to deal with the Irish border problem.

They're going to talk down the Good Friday agreement and say it's a load of bollocks anyway.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/exnorthern-ireland-secretary-paterson-slammed-for-good-friday-agreement-comment-36616767.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hoey-good-friday-agreement_uk_5a8adf6de4b00bc49f46c3ac

Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of the Will Of (Some Of) The People. Not even peace in Ireland.

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On 13/02/2018 at 3:07 AM, GAROVORKIN said:

Unelected bureaucrats Unelected insurance companies don't tend  to consider the actual costs of everything associated  with healthcare . No matter how many loopholes the UK government might close  or  taxes and fees that they raise, much they extort as premiums, they will never be able to provide  good services to the majority of people. To control costs and maintain maximum coverage maximise profits , they will  be forced  to reduce the quality of access to those services   The system and how it set up ,managed , budgeted and paid for is the problem. 

 Doesn't The UK still have private healthcare service to cover the shortfall of NHS? the NHS to supply healthcare services to the vast majority of people who could not otherwise afford them?

Fixed that for you.

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14 hours ago, mormont said:

Well, at least we know now how Brexiteers are going to deal with the Irish border problem.

They're going to talk down the Good Friday agreement and say it's a load of bollocks anyway.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/exnorthern-ireland-secretary-paterson-slammed-for-good-friday-agreement-comment-36616767.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hoey-good-friday-agreement_uk_5a8adf6de4b00bc49f46c3ac

Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of the Will Of (Some Of) The People. Not even peace in Ireland.

The Good Friday Agreement and Belfast Agreement were ratified by referenda in both the UK and Republic of Ireland, which were passed by 71% and 94% respectively.

Is this an argument that the result of referendums should not be respected?

Oh wait, of course, referendums should only be respected as long as the people voting in them aren't Irish. That tracks. /s

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22 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Fixed that for you.

Haha! Nice. :)

I detest the claims that private healthcare is somehow better. As soon as anything is run for a profit then that has to come from somewhere. When it comes to movies, I don’t mind people making a buck. When it comes to healthcare, I say buff up the public system to whatever it needs and then allow all private to wither away.

The only side-effect will be all of the neo-liberals crying that there is no competition or incentive or whatever. As though not dying is somehow not incentive enough to get healthcare right.

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1 hour ago, Yukle said:

Haha! Nice. :)

I detest the claims that private healthcare is somehow better. As soon as anything is run for a profit then that has to come from somewhere. When it comes to movies, I don’t mind people making a buck. When it comes to healthcare, I say buff up the public system to whatever it needs and then allow all private to wither away.

The only side-effect will be all of the neo-liberals crying that there is no competition or incentive or whatever. As though not dying is somehow not incentive enough to get healthcare right.

You'd be confronted with a  lot of angry GP's and pharmacists.

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Just now, SeanF said:

You'd be confronted with a  lot of angry GP's and pharmacists.

Why would GPs be angry? They're technically self-employed but in practice (heh) get almost all of their income through the NHS contract. If the private system withered away, their income and employment conditions would not effectively change much, if at all. Claiming GPs to be part of the private system would be a technicality at best, absurd at worst. 

Dentists. You probably meant to say dentists.

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26 minutes ago, mormont said:

Why would GPs be angry? They're technically self-employed but in practice (heh) get almost all of their income through the NHS contract. If the private system withered away, their income and employment conditions would not effectively change much, if at all. Claiming GPs to be part of the private system would be a technicality at best, absurd at worst. 

Dentists. You probably meant to say dentists.

Their tax bills, however, would rise markedly if they were classed as employees. And, plenty of GPs do private work, although NHS work provides the bulk of their income.

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Their tax bills, however, would rise markedly if they were classed as employees. And, plenty of GPs do private work, although NHS work provides the bulk of their income.

Why would they be classed as employees? Just because the private system withered away, why would that change the employment status of a contractor who already works pretty much exclusively for the public system? You seem to be taking what Yukle said and replacing it with something that was not said, that every medical practitioner would be forced to work as an employee of the NHS. 

Again, GPs are not in any significant sense part of the private system at present and were a bad example. Which is weird, because it's not like you have to look far to find a better one, instead of clinging to this one. 

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Health care systems like many other things in modern bureaucratic democracies have a tendency to give one "worst of both worlds" , i.e. competition on the shoulders of the suffering, monopolies, monopsonies, successful rent seeking by those privileged in some way, closed "markets" with very high entry thresholds, too much admin/bureaucracy, lack of options/choices, lobbyists influencing what is covered by public health plans and what is not...

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I'm kinda surprised that I have not seen any ads for Nando's making the most of KFC chicken shortage.

 

for some reason I am not actually surprised that some people are calling the police about the lack of chicken.  the fact that I am not surprised makes me feel sad though.

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