I’ve just been to the barbers for a haircut, and while waiting I leafed through some of the papers left out. One was the Heil, so I looked through that. Okay, I’m not proud of it, but it was something to read while waiting. Needless to say, it was as it usually is. There’s a story about the cost of housing asylum seekers and the channel migrants. But what really disgusted me was an opinion piece. This was by a supposed NHS consultant urging patients to ‘beg, borrow or steal’ to go private.
This is essentially the Tory strategy for running down the NHS, ever since Maggie Thatcher. She wanted the health service privatised and replaced by an American-style healthcare system funded by private health insurance. She was only stopped by a cabinet revolt and the finding of her personal secretary, Patrick Jenkin. Jenkin had been to America and knew exactly how poor in comparison the American system was. So Thatcher had to content herself with aiming to get 10 per cent of the population to take out private health insurance.
She also began process of piecemeal privatisation, selling off or opening up the ancillary services to private competition. This process was carried on by John Major’s administration and then by Tony Blair, who was ostensibly Labour. And Cameron, Tweezer and Bozo have in turn continued the wretched process. Private healthcare firms are allowed to compete with the NHS itself for contracts for medical services. Thanks to this privatisation, administration costs in the NHS have sky-rocketed where they approaching the levels -25 per cent or so – which the American private health system spends on administration. Privatisation does not bring savings. Quite the opposite. At the same time, the Tories have cut spending on the NHS, and grotty Tories like Truss and Mogg are saying they’ll cut more NHS ‘waste’. Meaning, presumably, more expensive privatisation and cuts.
The only way to cut waste is to renationalise the NHS.
But the article shows the direction of travel British healthcare is taking under the Tories: a two-tier system, with poor NHS services for the people at the bottom, and expensive private healthcare for those who can afford it. And the Tories stand to profit from it personally. Under Cameron, 100 MPs had personally connections to private healthcare firms.
If you really want to ensure that you and the rest of this great nation has the healthcare it needs and deserve, then kick the Tories and the other privatisers out, and demand the renationalisation of the NHS!
Tags: Asylum Seekers, Boris Johnson, Channel Migrants, Conservatives, Cuts, Daily Mail, David Cameron, Funding, Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Major, Labour Party, Liz Truss, Margaret Thatcher, Nationalisation, NHS, NHS Privatisation, Patrick Jenkin, Private Health Insurance, Private Healthcare Companies, Theresa May, tony blair
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
August 27, 2022 at 10:46 am |
It would be worth researching who this NHS consultant is and finding out what ties, if any, they may have to private healthcare providers.
August 27, 2022 at 4:29 pm |
Definitely. I can remember the Sunday Express running a piece by a female surgeon back in the 1980s where she defended surgeons taking on private patients.
August 27, 2022 at 5:38 pm |
The DM is shilling for Liz Truss, no doubt. As for the Conservative privatisation of the NHS, I thought even the Tory papers had realised that Matt Hancock, Sunak, Javid et al had awarded PPE contracts to cronies. It is worth noting, however, that some of the most rebellious MPs over Covid policies were Labour and LibDem MPs. Jeremy Corbyn actually voted *against* the November 2020 lockdown for instance, and Becky L-B voted against the majority of Covid restrictions.