... 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.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.
They have also warned there are plans to roll the policy out to all surgical areas ‘over a period of time’.
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 -
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.
7 comments:
I also welcome the destruction of the NHS, however, if we do ever end up with a system of private healthcare, they won't stop charging us NI.
They will either come up with something else that it 'needs to pay for' or just mingle it in with tax.
Best stop voting for 'them' then... Viva le private healthcare...get what you pay for..
Agreed.
And if we get our NI refunded, can we have our tobacco duty refunded as well please, and a large up front payment at age 60 to compensate us for the ten years' worth of old age pension we won't claim due to pegging it earlier?
Nope, thought not.
This mongering about smokers die young, they should make it a law that any smoker beyond a certain age, say age 60, should automatically have a lifetime's worth of tobacco taxes refunded to them for having not died young enough to get full advantage of what was paid in.
Bucko has a point. Aside from the obvious problem of government being unwilling to give up all that lovely NI money that it gets and fighting tooth and nail to keep it, it has a ready excuse in the fact that NI pays for the state pension as well. Now clearly the state pension is a Ponzi scheme in all but name and would be illegal if anyone tried it privately, but the point is that just sticking to the healthcare aspect of NICs probably isn't going to change anything. And of course if push comes to shove and NICs one day are binned then whichever government in power at the time will just release a budget that makes up the taxes in other areas and carry on as before. I'm coming to the conclusion that the NHS has, like its bastard parent the British state, actually got too big to kill. The sliver lining is that it's also too big to avoid its own death through bankruptcy, possibly taking much of the the state with it thanks to its sacred cow status preventing governments from doing what needs to be done beforehand.
Beware: by referring to "health professionals" you are endorsing the self-aggrandizing jargon of these people.
Doctors have a profession, administrators and nurses do not. Nor does the rag-bag of other hangers-on and busybodies.
It's so much better to call things by their name than by a portmanteau category designed to conceal their pernicious, interfering uselessness.
"PEOPLE who refuse to attempt to quit smoking or shed weight ..."
Aha! I may have spotted a flaw ifn their cunning plan, there....
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