Bye Bye NHS?

{sigh} Cheers to Blogger for going down for 24 hours and restoring to a previous working arrangement, thereby wiping a couple of finished drafts. Let's (more succinctly) try again ...

... because it has to be pointed out that this is exactly the way to kill the NHS.

PEOPLE who refuse to attempt to quit smoking or shed weight if they are obese will be declined hip and knee operations under new rules.

They have also warned there are plans to roll the policy out to all surgical areas ‘over a period of time’.

Excellent! As someone who believes that the NHS is as inefficient and condescending an arrangement of healthcare that could possibly be imagined, this is just what we need. The more people who wake up to the sniffy arrogance of those charged with running the nation's health provision, the better.

And this is precisely the way to do it. Take people's taxes with the cradle-to-grave promise of 'free healthcare at the point of delivery regardless of ability to pay', then - without refunding any cash - deny the service and effectively say "we've had your money, now fuck off to the private sector or suffer/die". In other areas where financial transactions occur, offer acceptance and all that, we call this theft.

Brilliant.

Sadly, some have noticed the potential problems.

Betty Harris, chairman of Dacorum Hospital Action Group, said: “It worries me greatly. You start by taking one lot of patients out and it carries on. Who will be next? Maybe the elderly because they’re getting on and are not worth bothering with? I’m very angry about it.”

Pipe down, Betty, they might hear you!

One test case, that's all. Just one that judges a patient entitled to their NI contributions back and that's the NHS bankrupt overnight. Forget PPI contingency funds, it's chicken feed compared to the bill the flood of claimants would heap on the NHS. They'd have two options, either continue to be righteous nerks and face a future privatised health system - you know, one in which administrators would have to take account of customer satisfaction - or, and I know this will be hard for them, actually do the fucking job they are handsomely paid for. It's not called 'universal' healthcare for nothing, you know.

I, for one, welcome the self-destruction of the NHS by bean counters and righteous knuckleheads who think our money - ripped from us under threat of violence handed over in good faith - is theirs to squander on seminars, performance management workshops, and junkets instead of providing the promised service.

It's the only way we'll ever return to the days of health professionals who smile instead of sneer at those who provide their golf club membership, and who understand that we are their boss, not the other way round.