The Tories want to switch to a for pay NHS
July 16, 2015 6:16 AM   Subscribe

If David Cameron, or his Chancellor or Health Secretary had announced such an inquiry to re-consider a principle that has been sacrosanct since 1946, you’d expect front page headlines and Newsnight specials considering the implications.
The Tories are launching in investigation into a for pay NHS, switching from a tax supported to an insurance/charges model, according to Richard Grimes at OpenDemocracy.net.
posted by MartinWisse (95 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Since the election, the Tories have been acting like they've been given the keys to dad's car, and have decided it would be fun to drive it in a demolition derby.

My mother, who voted Conservative because, in her words "better the devil you know, and I just didn't like that Milliband guy", apologised to me yesterday for being taken in by this bunch of lying scumbags.
posted by pipeski at 6:27 AM on July 16, 2015 [59 favorites]


I keep hearing these people talk about how unaffordable the NHS is, despite it being consistently rated as one of the most efficient and best healthcare systems in the world.

I guess it's true what they say about repeating a lie often enough!

Right, new rule. Anytime you hear anyone say anything about the NHS being unaffordable you must immediately demand to know if they are stupid or corrupt. This rule now holds for all people in the world. I HAVE DECREED IT!
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:32 AM on July 16, 2015 [39 favorites]


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
posted by Drexen at 6:33 AM on July 16, 2015 [25 favorites]


I've already written to my MP about this because I am so ANGRY. I am also angrily rereading the Kings Fund report into precisely this linked in the article. It is a great report, but it doesn't say what the government want so they of course will ignore it and instead let their lovely friends in the health insurance industry advise them instead. /cynical health economist
posted by litereally at 6:33 AM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Well, the insurance model works so amazingly well in the US, it would be criminal not to switch the UK to something similar.
< /sarcasm >
posted by Thorzdad at 6:33 AM on July 16, 2015 [57 favorites]


You'd think being rated the world's best healthcare system would signal to these guys that the system works quite well as it is.
posted by LtRegBarclay at 6:33 AM on July 16, 2015 [16 favorites]


this is what we have in chile, and there are two big problems.

the first one is obvious - that poor people have worse or no insurance. there's a basic "safety net", but because it's only used by the poorest there's less incentive for it to be decent, so it's not (in general; in the interest of fairness i should say that there are exceptions - for example, for certain approved medicines for certain chronic illnesses, there is guaranteed support).

the second is perhaps less obvious. if you have a chronic condition, then you are fucked. insurance companies won't touch you. so, for example, a chilean friend of mine who was diagnosed with MS when living abroad cannot get insurance on returning to her home country.
posted by andrewcooke at 6:37 AM on July 16, 2015 [13 favorites]


It's not at all surprising. Oliver Letwin, the svengali of this government, wrote a leaflet in 1998, 30-years ago, outlining how all public services could be privatised, including the NHS. One justification was that waiting rooms could be "nicer".

The key "Lord" behind it, Lord Prior, used to run the "Care Quality Commission", runs a bunch of academy schools, and whaddya know, used to be the Conservative Party Chairman.

The Tories have hated the NHS since its inception, indeed Churchill fought its creation tooth and nail.

And Cameron has hired as his special advisor, one Nick Seddon, who used to be marketing director for Circle, who just happen to be one of the many companies bidding for NHS work.

The simple fact is: if you have 50 million people collectively purchasing health-care it will be cheaper if they purchase it as one, the NHS, than if purchased by 50 million individuals - so the collective cost is cheaper. In terms of escalating costs, yep, it's going up, but that's actually a separate conversation from the one re how to pay for healthcare. It'll go up whether we pay collectively or as individuals as we're all getting older.

Ideology man, that's what its all about. Pure ideological hatred.
posted by rolandroland at 6:37 AM on July 16, 2015 [42 favorites]


HATE THEM

SO MUCH
posted by kyrademon at 6:41 AM on July 16, 2015 [26 favorites]


We had an insurance/charges supported model of healthcare. The people who suffered under it voted overwhelmingly to make the NHS. I dare say that the principle of access to healthcare is so strongly rooted in the UK that any charges will be considered a great wrong. I currently volunteer for a charity which provides end-of-life care above and beyond NHS services. I will not do so should the benefit of my work go to private insurance companies.

I expect that the Government will sweeten the poison by giving pensioners--the heaviest users of any healthcare system--a free ride. There is no benefit too great for the Conservatives to bestow upon the old, and none to small to take away from the young.

The Tories have hated the NHS since its inception, indeed Churchill fought its creation tooth and nail.

Churchill really was a shitbag, wasn't he? If folk only knew what he did outside the years 1940-5, they would sicken at his very mention. That racist, misogynist, classist, over-privileged, narrow-minded, short-sighted, hypocritical, two-faced, bag of soundbites should be thrown in the dustbin of history. Never in the history of the world has a man of such great praise been so undeserving of it.
posted by Thing at 6:44 AM on July 16, 2015 [51 favorites]


Bear in mind, this government was voted for by 24% of the electorate (37% of the turnout).
This does not give them a mandate for the kind of changes they are trying to implement.
(That said the 2001 and 2005 labour government had a smaller vote, in terms of %age of electorate)
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:47 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's all going... the NHS, the BBC. All benefits you receive will have to be paid back will be the next thing. They it's a short step to workhouses in all but name (which I predicted a few years back). Eventually pensions. It'll all be chipped away bit by bit, part-privatization by part privatization.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:48 AM on July 16, 2015 [8 favorites]


Best read a little something to get ready for what it's going to be like...
posted by runincircles at 6:50 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Reagan and Thatcher. Man, they really redefined mutual assured destruction.
posted by TedW at 6:51 AM on July 16, 2015 [25 favorites]


Ugh, guys, speaking as an American I'm really, really sorry you're going through this.

I feel like for a long time whenever we had a post that touched even tangentially on the American Healthcare System we'd get a bunch of people from places like the UK coming in to talk about their AMAZING experiences with healthcare where they just walked in (or got wheeled in, or brought in by ambulance, or whatever) and got treated quickly and respectfully and didn't have to pay anything. It kind of drove me nuts because I was like "I KNOW! I KNOW your healthcare system is better than ours! Please stop rubbing it in! You just sound smug and you're treating me like an idiot for not knowing that your system is better when WE ALL KNOW IT'S BETTER!"

I guess it's time to bring back those stories because it turns out that NOT everyone knows it's better or, worse and more likely, there are a lot of people who legit don't care.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:52 AM on July 16, 2015 [26 favorites]


Oh they know it's better. They know.
They also know it's less profitable.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:54 AM on July 16, 2015 [20 favorites]


What is so terrible to me about this is that it's clear that democracy has ceased to work even a bit. Most people in the UK don't want to dismantle the NHS, but it's probably going to be dismantled, precisely in order to hand a lot of money to the very richest people, who are all friends of the government anyway. As I understand it, in fact, the existing privatization/internal markets part of the NHS (which was put in during the 90s?) actually raised costs, right? So we have proof that it won't be cheaper, it will just be more profitable. So basically, an unaccountable elite are going to destroy an important public service to enrich themselves against the will of the majority, and no one can stop them.

Watching the UK just go absolutely to pieces over the last fifteen years has been one of the more depressing experiences of my adult life. I wouldn't move there - from the US! the fascist, tyrannical US! - if you paid me. Whereas when I was growing up, all my little left anglophile buddies dreamed about moving there.
posted by Frowner at 6:56 AM on July 16, 2015 [50 favorites]


There's a very slight glimmer of a bright side in the fact we're not going to have PM Boris any time soon.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:59 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is a pretty thin article. Prior says, in answer to a question, that he would be happy to discuss the possibility of an independent inquiry but that he is "personally convinced, having looked at many other funding systems around the world, that a tax-funded system is the right one".

The Tories are up to all sorts of dodgy things with the NHS and other public services, but there doesn't seem to be any substance here to match the tone of outrage.
posted by sobarel at 7:04 AM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Ideology man, that's what its all about. Pure ideological hatred.

This, Greece, life crippling school loan burdens here in the U.S., and the list goes on and on. This has been building for decades. If we don't start calling this what it is and begin acting on that basis, then it'll just get worse and worse. And that means applying this appellation to supporters of these kinds of policies.

Corporatist fascism. Fascists. And ultimately, murderers.
posted by CincyBlues at 7:08 AM on July 16, 2015 [21 favorites]


Conservatives the world over are little more than useful pawns of the global elite, who will never, never stop until every last cent devoted to the public sector is redirected into thier own pockets. It's how they coddle up to power and increase thier own favor in the eyes of the billionares. Wholesale looting is their only model of how the government should work, as a direct transfer agent from the populace to the elites.
posted by T.D. Strange at 7:10 AM on July 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


Brits: please do not try to one up American stupidity. Our republicans have a bit of a complex about getting to ride in the front of the crazy train.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:14 AM on July 16, 2015 [13 favorites]


Antony Fisher: Champion of Liberty, or Herald of Freedom?

The Tories continue to follow the agenda of people like Fisher and Margaret Thatcher. Socialism must be stamped out at any cost.
posted by sneebler at 7:15 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is the usual prelude to unpopular legislative change. Let it be known that something extreme is being considered. Let the reflexive outrage build then actually announce something maybe a third as bad. The idiotic populace then breathe a sigh of relief and thus the NHS, BBC, whatever continue to die a death of a thousand cuts.

Of course even Tory scum wouldn't dismantle the NHS in one move, but they might in 5 or 6 or 7 ...
posted by epo at 7:16 AM on July 16, 2015 [35 favorites]


Is this the "Tories are going to privatise the NHS!" story again? Like they did in 1979, in 1983, in 1987, in 1992, and in 2010? They're very keen to get more private sector involvement, of course, just like New Labour was: but I would be astonished if there was any change to "free at the point of need". Might be wrong, of course. But history suggests this comes up every year or two and isn't true.

[hamburger] Of course, we might end up with a insurance-funded healthcare system like France or Germany, which would obviously be awful. [/hamburger]

I suspect the main determinant of healthcare outcomes is the population, not the system: Northern England (Tory/New Labour market reforms) looks just like Scotland (devolved government, no reforms) and nothing like London (same market reforms, but different people - immigration, nationality, education, ethnicity).
posted by alasdair at 7:20 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


There's also this, just in: Jeremy Hunt stuffing cash down his trousers .... not really ...

but there is this:

Jeremy Hunt, Health Minister, Doesnt Rule Out Charges.

Don't forget folks! The only time Hunt intervened in the Olympic opening ceremony was when he questioned the whole NHS bit ..... can't imagine why.

The fear, anger, and panic is entirely justified. They want the NHS gone.
posted by rolandroland at 7:23 AM on July 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


Since the election, the Tories have been acting like they've been given the keys to dad's car, and have decided it would be fun to drive it in a demolition derby.

This is true, but budget aside they haven't actually managed to get the car started yet. I think they've forgotten they only have a working majority of seven votes. They got a bloody nose over as trifling a thing as fox-hunting; I think they'd have a proper battle getting a NHS slaughter passed.

Unless one of two things happens: it's a dodgy backdoor deal like the last BBC attack, or Labour go along with it (as they cravenly appear to be doing on tax credit cuts).
posted by bonaldi at 7:25 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Bear in mind, this government was voted for by 24% of the electorate (37% of the turnout).
And just 15% of the electorate - or 1 out of 59 MPs - in Scotland (NHS Scotland is separate from that south of the border - but its funding level is determined by the overall level allocated to health by the UK government).
posted by rongorongo at 7:27 AM on July 16, 2015


Fuck you Tories.

(Though I assume Labour and the Lib Dems are doing everything they can to assist.)
posted by Artw at 7:29 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


I know it's nothing new in terms of the UK government not so slowly altering the landscape of the country, but it makes me so sad and really damn angry. Mostly for my family and friends there, but in a tiny part for myself because I have a deep love for the UK. My SIL let us know that she and her family are thinking of moving back to Canada in the next few years because of all this shit. She worked very hard to get her UK citizenship so she is sad that she might have to give it up because of this fuckery.

The US model of healthcare is not an example, but a warning.
posted by Kitteh at 7:35 AM on July 16, 2015 [4 favorites]




My SIL let us know that she and her family are thinking of moving back to Canada in the next few years because of all this shit.
If the cons win another majority in Canada, the public system will probably be dismantled too.
posted by Poldo at 7:43 AM on July 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


Bear in mind that people who can afford it already pay prescription charges. If there were a proposal to make the richest people contribute a bit to the costs of expensive treatments, I think that might actually be progressive. But no proposal is on the table at the moment, so keep calm and carry on, chaps.
posted by Segundus at 7:46 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am so sick of 'conservatives' everywhere. Seriously sick of them.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:49 AM on July 16, 2015 [17 favorites]


And one more thing re: the seven-day working week: there's not alot of point if supporting staff aren't working e.g. pharmacists ("Hey, you need these drugs" "where can I get them?" "not in the hospital" "oh, great"), x-ray staff, MRI staff, etc .... and the plan does not include doing that.

So, what's the real agenda? Demonstrate that there isn't enough money to do this, and hence put yet further pressure on us all to pay directly. E.g.:

- Want an X-ray at the weekend? You must pay!
posted by rolandroland at 7:49 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Given the presumed unpopularity of this, how do they think they'll pull it off? I'd imagine the political blowback would be comprehensive and long lasting.
posted by echocollate at 7:49 AM on July 16, 2015


As an American living in the UK for the last few years, let me just say how it warms the cockles of my heart to see my new home country going on the path of my old home country. Nothing will be better than having millions of new people utterly fucked because they cannot pay for their chronic health conditions, and having nothing on the telly but ads for drugs they do not need. Paradise Regained!
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 7:51 AM on July 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


The Great Dismantlement is really taking place across Europe now.

All the continent's major social democratic parties have effectively been neutralised, pockets of left-wing opposition exist and that's about it.

It's kind of like Star Wars, except if the Empire had conquered the Rebels through a gradual process of erosion, fiscal myth, apathy, and stoked paranoia, rather than easy-to-destroy Death Stars.
posted by TheAlarminglySwollenFinger at 7:51 AM on July 16, 2015 [13 favorites]


> Bear in mind that people who can afford it already pay prescription charges.

Upper bound is £10 a month in practice.
posted by Leon at 7:53 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Anytime you hear anyone say anything about the NHS being unaffordable you must immediately demand to know if they are stupid or corrupt.

Whether or not the NHS is affordable is nothing to do with the principle of free healthcare, but this lot will try to use economic aspects to undermine the whole thing. And, of course, privatizing it will mysteriously end up costing the public more, even if everyone has insurance, just as it always does with these projects.

As part of sorting out the NHS's finances, I'd rather favour an "ability to pay" model, where anyone owning an apartment in central London that they don't live in for more than a week a year has to buy their own hospital...

Proposals for curtailing the BBC, cutting benefits for the poorest, new union curbs, trying to bring hunting back, and now this. It certainly hasn't taken this lot too long to revert to type after the election.

I didn't vote for them (and cannot conceive of any circumstance under which I would) but that is small comfort...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 7:54 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


So, what's the real agenda

The plan is the same as the plan for the London underground.

Introduce a measure that looks great and people want (24 hour tube, 7 day doctors)
impose it on the service without adding any extra resources to pay for it.
Wait for the inevitable strike/outrage.

Point at unions or doctors or whatever and say, these greedy people are stopping you getting what you want.
Use that as an excuse to privatise or union break.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:54 AM on July 16, 2015 [31 favorites]


The political blowback would be comprehensive and long lasting.

At the moment there isn't really an opposition to take advantage of that. Or there's... UKIP?
posted by Artw at 7:58 AM on July 16, 2015


If the cons win another majority in Canada, the public system will probably be dismantled too.

Believe me, as a PR in Canada, I am only too aware of that. I wish I could vote in this year's election here.
posted by Kitteh at 8:03 AM on July 16, 2015


The Tories have hated the NHS since its inception, indeed Churchill fought its creation tooth and nail.

Are you absolutely sure about that? Churchill did say:
The dis­cov­er­ies of heal­ing sci­ence must be the inher­i­tance of all. That is clear: Dis­ease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poor­est or the rich­est man or woman sim­ply on the ground that it is the enemy; and it must be attacked just in the sane way as the fire brigade will give its full assis­tance to the hum­blest cot­tage as read­ily as to the most impor­tant mansion….Our pol­icy is to cre­ate a national health ser­vice in order to ensure that every­body in the coun­try, irre­spec­tive of means, age, sex, or occu­pa­tion, shall have equal oppor­tu­ni­ties to ben­e­fit from the best and most up-to-date med­ical and allied ser­vices available.
Now, I'm no UK historian, but my impression is that Churchill didn't proactively fight for the NHS plan that was developed, but he didn't stand in the way, either.

Joe Conason puts it like this:
Although Churchill endorsed the idea of a national health system, his party lost the first post-war general election in 1945, partly because British voters didn’t trust the Tories to implement the Beveridge report. Instead a Labor government established universal care under the NHS in 1948.

Only three years later, the Tories returned to power with Churchill restored as prime minister. At that point, the NHS could still have been killed — and many members of the Tory party, not to mention the British Medical Association, were eager to do so.

But Churchill asked Claude Guillebaud, a Cambridge economist, to head a committee to study the performance and efficiency of the NHS. The Gillebaud committee found that the NHS was highly effective – and needed additional funding to insure that effectiveness would continue. There was no more talk of dismantling the very popular service, and instead the Tories under Churchill and his immediate successors allocated more money to build additional clinics and hospitals.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:08 AM on July 16, 2015 [13 favorites]


Maybe the US and Great Britain both peed into a kind-of-crappy magic fountain.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:08 AM on July 16, 2015


Never in the history of the world has a man of such great praise been so undeserving of it.

Keep in mind, Churchill was an American.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:10 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Welp. Time to burn some effigies. Tip: make the faces super-realistic and make sure to get them right by the camera before you light them. Use petrol, it's scarier.
posted by sexyrobot at 8:11 AM on July 16, 2015


I blows my mind that (what I consider) to be the greatest innovation of the 20th century is being eroded world-wide by greedy idiots calling themselves politicians.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:12 AM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


The Tories are launching in investigation into a for pay NHS

No, really not. Some old buffers in the House of Lords had a rambling discussion. The Minister said he was convinced that a tax-funded system was best, but he was willing to talk about possibly sponsoring an inquiry into demand for NHS services long-term if people were keen.

Bear in mind that Richard Grimes is not an independent journalist, he's a campaigner from Socialist Healthcare. If you're really worried, at least read the actual debate.

But really, nothing happened. Think of your blood pressures, people.
posted by Segundus at 8:26 AM on July 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


Presumably Labour is on all the television shows mumbling that they won't oppose this, in a dull listess voice while staring at nothing in the middle distance, and the new SNP members are yelling some near cognate of "what the fuck happened to you people?"

20-year-old SNP MP Mhairi Black's first speech in the Commons is really something.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:31 AM on July 16, 2015 [12 favorites]


What is so terrible to me about this is that it's clear that democracy has ceased to work even a bit. Most people in the UK don't want to dismantle the NHS, but it's probably going to be dismantled, precisely in order to hand a lot of money to the very richest people, who are all friends of the government anyway.

Is this really accurate, that it's "probably" going to be dismantled? This is an honest question, not an attempt to start an argument, because I'm not really seeing any other accounts suggesting that it's more likely than not to happen. Isn't it just as likely that the Tories are sabre rattling for the usual reasons people sabre rattle, e.g., to position themselves with respect to their advancing agenda in general?

Again, these aren't rhetorical questions; I'm genuinely unclear on why people are already sounding the death knells for the NHS based on this one piece.

On preview, what Segundus said, more or less.
posted by holborne at 8:32 AM on July 16, 2015


holborne - yes. They passed some legislation last time called the health and social care act. One part of it said that the Home Secretary was under no obligation to provide a health care service, something that has been there since after the war. If you are passing legislation like that, I think you can guess the directions they are heading. There is more and more privatisation, Circle Healthcare are now running hospitals, services are outsourced to people like Cirlce and Serco etc (all the usual culprits) and a lot of the hospitals were built under PFI and are paying interest on the PFI which means they are losing money and in the red, and can be put into special measures (i.e. ran by a private company).

If anyone in this thread thinks the Tories have any love for the NHS and are not going to dismantle it then you are misguided at best. They hate it and want it smashed up, and have been working on this for the last 5 years and will continue to work on it.

Sorry for rambling, just back from work and it was way busy so I am near exhausted.
posted by marienbad at 8:38 AM on July 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


To be honest this probably is just some lords saying stuff that's daft, but the Tories (and Labour these days) are very keen on privatising stuff and very keen on more private sector intervention in the NHS. The recentish, expensive disastrous (and partially repealed) Health and Social care act was what they tried when restrained by the lib dems and when they had explicitly promised they wouldn't.
What are they likely to try this time, given that they have no promise to break and no pesky lib dems to restrain them?

This is probably not the real play, but it's going to be something (probably after they've pushed EVEL through because you know the SNP would fight them and Labour probably won't).
So, yes, it's not barricades and Molotov time (figuratively) yet, but the price of the NHS is eternal vigilance.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 8:40 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm thinking of the push to privatize social security among US conservatives.

One thing that helped was the opposition going on the offensive— expand the NHS!
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 8:45 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


if you have a chronic condition, then you are fucked. insurance companies won't touch you.

That, at least, is no longer true in the US, thanks to Obamacare.
posted by yoink at 9:09 AM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]



Reagan and Thatcher. Man, they really redefined mutual assured destruction.

May I add: of the poor and middle class?
posted by notreally at 9:09 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Looking at this makes me think that us in 1st world countries should collaborate (internationally) on ways to stem conservative trends that are universal across them, instead of focusing on X country which has better Y, etc.

I say this, relatively recently internalizing the awful stuff in the US (where I live), resigned to the fact that the same stuff is working its way around to other industrialized countries (thus there's no point in even planning to become an ex-pat or permanent visitor elsewhere, might as well fight the good fight here).

There are legit bases for these trends, namely resource limits. Trick is going to be integrating them into the democratic conversations around topics such as healthcare, such that most people understand. End product should be resource and socially conscious policy *crosses fingers*
posted by JoeXIII007 at 9:13 AM on July 16, 2015


American here: I thought that the NHS was a bit like Medicare in the states, that is, railed at by the right but actually politically bulletproof because *gasp* it works, and while politicos can burnish their bona-fides against it, to actually attempt something would be touching the 'third rail'.
Is this not the case?
posted by eclectist at 9:48 AM on July 16, 2015


We were at a village fete last weekend in beautiful warm sunshine. I'd snaffled a lovely painting for 20p (30 cents) from the bric a bric stall, drunk a wonderful cup of tea courtesy of the WI and had been paddling in a tributary of The River Test. I was blissfully happy for the first time in quite a long time (my mother recently passed from cancer).

And then the bloody local tory MP appeared, grinning inanely, looking for babies to kiss and hands to shake. All the loathing I've long held for the tories and the renewed hatred I'm feeling for this government must have shown in my face as I stared at him - he made an abrupt left and we were left to enjoy the river in peace.

Fucking tory gobshites. There's a special place in hell for this bunch.
posted by humph at 10:06 AM on July 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


The privatization of British Rail may provide some indication of how things would go with a for-pay NHS. Over twenty years, there has been a poor safety record and funneling of billions in taxpayer subsidies to private shareholders. If privatization can dismantle a public service like British Rail, it can be done to the NHS.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:22 AM on July 16, 2015 [5 favorites]


They're doing the usual spoiled child/politician thing: ask for the pony so they can actually get some cookies before dinner.

Which isn't to say that they're not aiming at destroying NHS; it seems crystal clear that they are (and I'd be astonished if Harper didn't have a five year plan for doing it here). I'm just betting this gets floated via a useful puppet in the Lords, there is Public Outrage, and they slide in something almost as odious--didn't they have something about killing wind farms and expanding fracking?--while everyone is distracted.

Then next year they do it again, only this time they talk about killing welfare and bringing back workhouses--while they quietly pass legislation adding (more) fees to what were once standard NHS benefits. Repeat ad infinitum.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:49 AM on July 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


But Churchill asked Claude Guillebaud, a Cambridge economist, to head a committee to study the performance and efficiency of the NHS. The Gillebaud committee found that the NHS was highly effective – and needed additional funding to insure that effectiveness would continue. There was no more talk of dismantling the very popular service, and instead the Tories under Churchill and his immediate successors allocated more money to build additional clinics and hospitals.

That's the funny thing about immediate post-war history and, I think, up through the seventies in both the US and the UK - the right was not only on the run but was actively ideologically different (and less coherent) than it is now. As a non-UK person, I was astonished to read (in Andy Beckett's When The Lights Went Out: Britain In The Seventies, which is awesome) that Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath was not only from a genuinely working class family (dad a carpenter, mom a maid) but was - by American standards - positively left wing. (Of course, he was right wing for the UK at the time). He had this whole thing about how capital had to be made to benefit everyone and actually attempted to implement some policies that look wildly left from a US standpoint.
posted by Frowner at 11:02 AM on July 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


"better the devil you know, and I just didn't like that Milliband guy"

I'm curious as to the actual thought behind decisions like these -- I mean there's got to be more to it than that, there has to be some weighing of the benefits of the platforms, right? My mother-in-law voted Conservative here in Canada for the first time a couple of elections back because "I don't know, it felt like it was time for a change". It just doesn't make sense to me put in such simple terms. If you are bored of your hairstyle, do you then set your head on fire because "it felt like it was time for a change"? Or do you maybe just get a cut and colour or something? How do you go from supporting center-left to the hardest right option available just because of a feeling?
posted by Hoopo at 11:07 AM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


JoeXIII007: Looking at this makes me think that us in 1st world countries should collaborate (internationally) on ways to stem conservative trends that are universal across them, instead of focusing on X country which has better Y, etc.

Ever wonder why conservatives hate the UN so much? It's basically the only thing standing in the way of their political free-for-all. They just haven't found a big-enough bathtub yet. (Yes, the UN is inefficient and bureaucratic.)
posted by sneebler at 11:08 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's kind of like Star Wars, except if the Empire had conquered the Rebels through a gradual process of erosion, fiscal myth, apathy, and stoked paranoia, rather than easy-to-destroy Death Stars.

Yanis Varoufakis calls it "fiscal waterboarding".
posted by flabdablet at 11:57 AM on July 16, 2015


How do you go from supporting center-left to the hardest right option available just because of a feeling?

It's dead easy. All you need to do is pay more attention to sport and/or soapies than to politics.
posted by flabdablet at 11:59 AM on July 16, 2015


One analysis I read was that voters wanted to give the Lib Dems a slap on the wrist, not realizing they were going cut off the entire hand.
posted by Nevin at 12:15 PM on July 16, 2015


Ever wonder why conservatives hate the UN so much? It's basically the only thing standing in the way of their political free-for-all.

Actually it's because much of the UN is made up of dictators, despots and other thugs.
posted by Nevin at 12:16 PM on July 16, 2015


Death panels!
posted by fungible at 12:18 PM on July 16, 2015


> There are legit bases for these trends, namely resource limits.

What "resource limits" would these be? Oh, I know that in 20 years we're going to be hitting a bunch of hard limits, but right pretty every well every Western country is overall the richest it has ever been.

The basis for this trend is simple - the 0.1% have looted our societies and the treasuries of our governments, and everyone else has to pay for it.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:23 PM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


You mean the dictators, despots, and other thugs that the conservatives like to cozy up to, what with their (pick one) massive wealth/oil reserves/hunger for new military gear?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:29 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, you have Harriet Harman, acting leader of the Labor Party, announcing that Labor would not vote against the Tories' cuts to welfare because "the party simply could not tell the public they were wrong."

It seems that Labor is striving to fill the gap left by the Lib Dems. There is no real opposition party, so the Tories can pretty much do as they like. Why vote Tory-lite when you can have real Tories?
posted by JackFlash at 1:11 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Looking at this makes me think that us in 1st world countries should collaborate (internationally) on ways to stem conservative trends that are universal across them, instead of focusing on X country which has better Y, etc.

Global capitalism means that investors move capital across borders to rightist regimes that have political climates favorable to get-rich-quick schemes of this sort. It might be useful to investigate the companies pushing for privatization behind the scenes — politicians just do what they are told by their investors. Stopping this would require countries to agree on common regulations on transnational influence peddling, and a mechanism to enforce those restrictions.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:19 PM on July 16, 2015


I'm in danger of using up my favourite quota in this thread, you lovely people.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 1:59 PM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Dear rich people in the UK,

Hospitals, insurance, and health care sucks*here in the US, even if you are rich.

You're Welcome!
USA Rich People

*appointment hassles, co-pays, paperwork, bad continuity of care, etc
posted by gregglind at 3:12 PM on July 16, 2015


Given the failure of private healthcare at Hinchingbrooke, the government may think it's heading towards privatised healthcare, but in reality it's busy making health costs so expensive that even ruthless vultures like Circle can't make a profit. It's a massive failure to see anything as connected to anything else. Remove funding from support services that allow for early intervention in medical problems and you save money in the very short term. Except that, without intervention when things are cheap, you get to pay for expensive emergency treatment when things eventually hit crisis point. If an isolated and vulnerable person sprains their ankle, instead of paying for a few visits from social care services to make sure they're OK with food and personal care while recovering, we end up with a five week stay in hospital while they recover (or slowly fail to recover) from pneumonia. Which is why Circle were openly furious about the whole thing.

It's shit like this that makes me think that the Tories aren't actually evil, just massively and dangerously incompetent: They can't even sell our public services out from under us properly. (In an unrelated example, they've also managed to introduce a bill to ban legal highs that's so deluded in its aims that it's been heavily criticised by both their own advisory council and by charities that were previously campaigning for legal highs to be banned).

I suspect (OK, hope) that things are going to start go very wrong for the Tories when the people who have given them lots of money to serve up a delightful feast of public services start to realise that they're actually going to get the political equivalent of a motorway café cheese and pickle sandwich.
posted by xchmp at 3:44 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Rather than just link as I did above to the video of Mhairi Black's maiden speech to the Commons, here's the full text. It's still worth watching in full, and it's only about 8 minutes and she uses them incredibly well. This is not precociousness, this is genuinely one for the ages. She ends with some strong words about opposition. In part:
I like many SNP members come from a traditional socialist Labour family and I have never been quiet in my assertion that I feel that it is the Labour party that left me, not the other way about. The SNP did not triumph on a wave of nationalism; in fact nationalism has nothing to do with what’s happened in Scotland. We triumphed on a wave of hope, hope that there was something different, something better to the Thatcherite neo-liberal policies that are produced from this chamber. Hope that representatives genuinely could give a voice to those who don’t have one.

I don’t mention this in order to pour salt into wounds which I am sure are very open and very sore for many members on these benches, both politically and personally. Colleagues, possibly friends, have lost their seats. I mention it in order to hold a mirror to the face of a party that seems to have forgotten the very people they’re supposed to represent, the very things they’re supposed to fight for.

[...]No matter how much I may wish it, the SNP is not the sole opposition to this Government, but nor is the Labour party. It is together with all the parties on these benches that we must form an opposition, and in order to be effective we must oppose not abstain. So I reach out a genuine hand of friendship which I can only hope will be taken. Let us come together, let us be that opposition [...]
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:58 PM on July 16, 2015 [5 favorites]



It's shit like this that makes me think that the Tories aren't actually evil, just massively and dangerously incompetent: They can't even sell our public services out from under us properly.


sufficiently powerful incompetence is indistinguishable from evil
posted by lalochezia at 4:01 PM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Actually it's because much of the UN is made up of dictators, despots and other thugs.

Cite(s)? Because while there are some odious people on committees, it looks like the UN is somewhat representative of the political classes in its member countries. I'm not saying it's perfect, but saying that the UN is "made up of dictators, despots and other thugs" seems rather partisan. Keeping in mind that there is lots of anti-UN propaganda coming from right wing sources because they fear people actually working together on global issues.
posted by sneebler at 4:01 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Looking at this makes me think that us in 1st world countries should collaborate (internationally) on ways to stem conservative trends that are universal across them, instead of focusing on X country which has better Y, etc.


Once upon a time, there used to be something exactly like that, and it was rather well-organized internationally, and at some point it was even a majority in some countries, including the UK, a long, long time ago. It was called "the left", back when that definition still meant something. Remember?

Has anyone mentioned the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) already? It's been brought up in relation to these discussions about the NHS, amongst other things, because apparently it involves more privatisations and more powers to corporations. But maybe the concerns are all scaremongering and the TTIP is actually a good thing and public services like the NHS will never be affected. Who knows? Can anyone predict any political development these days? It all happens so fast. Especially when it happens outside of parliamentary debate.
posted by bitteschoen at 4:55 PM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


If the cons win another majority in Canada, the public system will probably be dismantled too.

Indeed. I know this thread is about the UK and the dismantling of anything that contributes to the public good that has been underway for a long time, and I know that most Canadian MeFites share my loathing of Harper and his gang so it's preaching to the converted for the most part, but: get out there and talk to people before the upcoming Canadian election, folks. Another Harper government, and I fear there will be no going back (assuming it's not already too late).
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:03 PM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Actually it's because much of the UN is made up of dictators, despots and other thugs.

Cite(s)?


I bang this drum a lot, but here's one - they're consistently more interested in prosecuting whistleblowers than people trading food for blowjobs with kids.
posted by Lemurrhea at 6:10 PM on July 16, 2015


This stresses me out but you know what, for my own mental health I am trying to concentrate my emotional energy on being upset about things the Tories are actually doing right now rather than things that they might do in the future. Maybe they will do this bad thing, maybe instead a bunch of different bad things. They have a tiny majority. It's all very well if you're viewing this from across an ocean but I'm right here and fighting the feeling of being in an apocalypse and I don't intend to collapse just yet.
posted by Acheman at 9:01 PM on July 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Rather than just link as I did above to the video of Mhairi Black's maiden speech to the Commons, here's the full text.

There was some discussion of it over here.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:55 PM on July 16, 2015


I am trying to concentrate my emotional energy on being upset about things the Tories are actually doing right now

If you want to write to your MP about something, I suggest the BBC just now.
posted by Segundus at 2:56 AM on July 17, 2015


"better the devil you know, and I just didn't like that Milliband guy"

I'm curious as to the actual thought behind decisions like these -- I mean there's got to be more to it than that, there has to be some weighing of the benefits of the platforms, right?


I went to an event at the Royal Statistical Society last week where one presenter gave details on a qualitative study run during the election which showed actually, no. Take a representative sample of people based in swing constituencies, ask them to note down every time they have a thought about the election, and the outcome was about 22% of thoughts were about policy issues and 78% were about people i.e. personalities of the leaders.

As a policy & research person, it was sobering (if not surprising).
posted by theseldomseenkid at 3:34 AM on July 17, 2015


George_Spiggot: Rather than just link as I did above to the video of Mhairi Black's maiden speech to the Commons, here's the full text. It's still worth watching in full, and it's only about 8 minutes and she uses them incredibly well.

An interesting aspect of Mhairi Black's speech is the contrast between the way it has taken off on social media and the way that BBC Scotland - the Norma Desmond of news coverage - chose to cover it - as a story where SNP MPs were reprimanded by the speaker for (oh the horror!) applauding.

Until, or unless, the BBC is prised at least a little way out of the clutch of the Conservative an Labour parties alike - I don't see it making much headway in helping protect the NHS.
posted by rongorongo at 4:58 AM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


On phone so providing a proper linked reply is difficult. But: Leon claims above that prescription costs max out at ten pounds a month in practice. This isn't true - it's a privileged perspective. If you're poor, disorganized, or both, or you need more expensive goods prescribed than most people (eg. gluten free food) or more often, you can easily rack up charges many times that per month.

People on low incomes either are exempted from prescription charges by receiving certain state benefits, or they have to go through a separate process declaring their income to the NHS. It's long and painful and not available to everyone. Alternatively, you can purchase a sort of bulk prescription allowance which reduces each charge. I don't have the money for that. So I forego other things, because I'm disabled and can do none of these things to reduce prescription costs. And when I'm receiving medication adjustments every fortnight, it stacks up.
posted by lokta at 6:45 AM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


He's talking about Greece, but this Jurgen Habermas interview has some interesting comments about Europe in general:
...I also share the view that this technocratic hollowing out of democracy is the result of a neoliberal pattern of market-deregulation policies. The balance between politics and the market has come out of sync, at the cost of the welfare state. Where we differ is in terms of the consequences to be drawn from this predicament. I do not see how a return to nation states that have to be run like big corporations in a global market can counter the tendency towards de-democratisation and growing social inequality – something that we also see in Great Britain, by the way.
posted by sneebler at 7:42 AM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Lokta: you can have a pre-payment certificate back-dated up to a month. If you have more than three prescriptions a month, then the choice is between "pay more now" and "pay less later".
posted by Leon at 12:35 PM on July 18, 2015


Lotka, assuming you have a bank account, the upfront cost of your PPC is just over £10 a month.
posted by ambrosen at 12:49 PM on July 18, 2015


I know how personal economics works (but ambrosen, thanks, I didn't know you could pay monthly, but you're still locked into a contract and I don't know how long I will be having above-normal prescription frequency, so it's not an investment I think is worth it). Leon - are you really unfamiliar with the "life costs more when you're poor and it's incredibly insulting when people suggest it's entirely your fault for not being clever enough with money" argument? It's why I bothered to post at all, not to get rehashes of the same comment. I have links which explain this if you've genuinely never come across this idea before.
posted by lokta at 3:30 PM on July 19, 2015


oh hell that PPC page is exactly the sort of thing that puts the fear of God into us precariat. I know why I've never gone near it now.
posted by lokta at 3:32 PM on July 19, 2015


Vimes' boots; I get it. I was trying to help by sharing a useful hack that saves £3.70.
posted by Leon at 5:13 PM on July 19, 2015


Thanks. You didn't.
posted by lokta at 11:24 PM on July 19, 2015


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