Acording to Britain's most senior doctor, a tax funed National Health Service which is free for everyone to use is unsustainable and should be scrapped. Meanwhile, the British Arms Industry enjoys a cool £1 billion in handouts from the tax payer.
Bernie Ribeiro, the new president of the Royal College of Surgeons, has said in an interview that the health care is unsustainable in it's current form and should be paid for via a social insurance system. He said patients should pay a proportion of the cost of their treatment and take out insurance to cover that amount.
What he fails to mention is that the system has proved itself for decades and set a model by which other countries aspired to. The difference now is greed. Pharaceutical companies are screwing the taxpayer with increasingly hyped up prices for drugs purchased throught the NHS while the government is delibratly runnig the service down in order to justify increased privatisation.
Meanwhile, while claiming that the country can't afford a free NHS, the government hands vast sums to the arms industry, to the tune of at least £763m per year. But then perhaps death and distruction is a greater priority for the government than the health of the population who provide the cach they so freely pass on to their friends at BAe etc.
The 2005 DSEi arms trade show is just weeks away. Last time round the taxpayer footed the £4.4 million pound bill for policing the event which see's thousands of buyers from the world coming to make dark deals with the death traders. This is clearly more important than a few hospitals and nurses. Long live the arms trade - death to the NHS!
What he fails to mention is that the system has proved itself for decades and set a model by which other countries aspired to. The difference now is greed. Pharaceutical companies are screwing the taxpayer with increasingly hyped up prices for drugs purchased throught the NHS while the government is delibratly runnig the service down in order to justify increased privatisation.
Meanwhile, while claiming that the country can't afford a free NHS, the government hands vast sums to the arms industry, to the tune of at least £763m per year. But then perhaps death and distruction is a greater priority for the government than the health of the population who provide the cach they so freely pass on to their friends at BAe etc.
The 2005 DSEi arms trade show is just weeks away. Last time round the taxpayer footed the £4.4 million pound bill for policing the event which see's thousands of buyers from the world coming to make dark deals with the death traders. This is clearly more important than a few hospitals and nurses. Long live the arms trade - death to the NHS!
Comments
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What does he know?
15.08.2005 08:13
Paul Edwards
What could the President of the RCS know about making money?
15.08.2005 18:42
For a private operator to take over any aspect of the NHS there has to be 'something in it' for the shareholders. For the private operator to do a task at less cost than the NHS can do it internally, money has to be saved somehow. Skilled managers can make savings by efficiency - better rota systems for instance can save money by having less need to pay staff on overtime. Lesser managers will replace contract workers with cheaper casual ones - a plan which may one day work out for BA's caterers.
The quicker alternative is to skin the staff, or the government/taxpayer. Having new NHS buildings on Private Finance Initiative is a bit like furnishing your home on hire-purchase - it costs you more in the long run but you don't have to find all the cash up front. But as a nation, we have the option to pay cash - we are, as a whole, not skint. The government chooses the HP option because it's not so noticeable in your payslip - it allows them to show you some shiny new hospitals AND not raise taxes, which makes them more confident about winning a future election. But long, long after the hospital is built, we will still be paying the PFI contractor.
bobby
They are the same eveywhere
22.08.2005 15:28
Recently, a high executive of Banco de Santander (they buyed Abbey National) declared;
-We must dismount the welfare state, and have'nt too much time to do it.-
Try to disclose the inextricable "liaisons" there are between public and private partners, purveyors, and so on. Former public responsibles are now heading private services, and viceversa. It's a plague!
Sorry for the english.
Enric Sallent