Don't get sick (The NHS vs Private Health Care)

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	The NHS vs Private Health Care
Date:	29/11/00 (133 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: We have the NHS in principle

Disadvantages: In practise, it's been in meltdown for years

It's a bad joke, or it would be if so many people weren't going to die this Christmas. You go in sick, catch something, come out sicker. The surgeons and specialists all have delusions of grandeur and run their departments like private fiefdoms, the junior doctors are dying on their feet, and the nurses are like the galley-slaves in 'Ben-Hur' - the whip cracks, the work goes on.

No, this isn't some crap little country with no money, this is allegedly 'Great' Britain, a country which is the fourth largest economy in the world, a country which actually had the civilised instincts to create the National Health Service, and look at it now. Why do we bother? Why don't we as a nation finally have the self-awareness to admit that we don't give a toss about the national health service, even though millions of us were outraged and appalled by the price we paid for petrol. The electorate have consistently voted in adminstrations who they perceived would not raise tax - the biggest public rising of our generation has been about paying less tax. The government that puts up income tax explicitly is the government that deselects itself.

That's it, that's our country. So don't get sick unless you can afford to go private.

Private Health Care shouldn't be regarded as some disgusting cancer on society - if you want posh food, a room of your own and peacocks on the lawn (this is a genuine feature of a private hospital where someone I know was treated) then fine, pay for it. The rich will always want to use their money to keep their lives exclusive - my watch cost £22, some people's watches cost £2200, that's just the way rich people like it. They like the option of having more, extra, away from the proles and in a sense that whole issue is irrelevant.

The fact that private health care is available for people who can afford it is not important; we have a National Health Service which shoul
d be properly funded and supported by all the parties. We shouldn't be distracted by the existence of Private Health - unless you abolish rich people, that will always exist. The vast majority of people can't afford private health insurance, and as someone else has already pointed out, a huge proportion of the population would be refused insurance because they already have conditions the companies would deem to expensive to treat.

So, we have to be honest with ourselves - it isn't about dividing the population up between those who can afford to pay and those who can't. Either we have a health service which works, or we are just another second rate country where the sick and disadvantaged are allowed to dwindle into an underclass. The latter is where we are currently going; the former will come directly from your wage packet - what's it going to be?

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