New layoffs in public sector

[larus]

Cuba to cut one million public sector jobs

Yikes, Cuba moving more towards capitalism and encouraging free-enterprise. Admitting that the state isn't best .

 

[Biscuit]

This has been brewing for ages hasn't it?

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Castro admitted in an offhand comment to a journo over lunch last week (and I paraphrase), "Communism has not been the best solution for Cuba". I'm sure his people are relieved to know that after all these years.

 

[larus]

I think this just proves that the state can't run things very well. Look at all of the communist countries, they all eventually adopt free-market reforms to some extent; Russia, China, Cuba.

When I hear these stories, I then wonder why people go on about wanting a large public sector. I don't understand why we can't, for example, get private contractors in to run the hospitals, but have them inspected by the state. Before anyone starts, I'm not on about making it a service which is funded differently, but allow some incentivisation for people to improve the workings of the NHS. It's a huge organisation and, I would guess, could make a lot of savings WITHOUT affecting front-line services.

 

[Martinf]

Tory Boy is back. Oh joy.

 

[cannedheat]

Maybe that fat lard arse geezer who run the Thomas the Tank engine union would go over and organise industrial action against the cuts.








Probably would not though.

 

[cheshunt seagull]

Is Cuban public healthcare about to plummet to the third world standards of nearby Florida?

 

[e77]

Castro junior and the ConDem coalition are forming a political consensus.

We live in strange times indeed.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Is Cuban public healthcare about to plummet to the third world standards of nearby Florida?

I was about to suggest the same.

I bumped into a couple of health tourists during my six weeks there. One had traveled through Canada and the other through Mexico.

My memory might be failing me or my Spanish might have failed me, but a I seem to recall a policeman suggesting that Doctors were paid the equivalent of $20 a month (in Pesos) in Cuba, promptly after they arrested a chap trying to give me a $20 half hour tour of Habana.

 

[RexCathedra]

Having embraced our 'you get what you pay for' model for post-secondary education, when the one you had was world-famous, by all means shred the NHS and go down that road for medicine.

Misery loves company.

 

[clapham_gull]

I think this just proves that the state can't run things very well. Look at all of the communist countries, they all eventually adopt free-market reforms to some extent; Russia, China, Cuba.

When I hear these stories, I then wonder why people go on about wanting a large public sector. I don't understand why we can't, for example, get private contractors in to run the hospitals, but have them inspected by the state. Before anyone starts, I'm not on about making it a service which is funded differently, but allow some incentivisation for people to improve the workings of the NHS. It's a huge organisation and, I would guess, could make a lot of savings WITHOUT affecting front-line services.

Please don't fall into the trap of equating western public services with the current and ex-communist states. You'll start sounding like the very stupid Americans who are currently suggesting that a National Health Service is "un-christian".

Having visited a hospital (on a few occasions) in the old Eastern Europe I can categorically tell you that the similarity was less than zero.

If there is anyone wrong with the NHS is the introduction of business practices that have made it a bit wonky. You see the thing about business is that whilst it succeeds and makes loads on money, it also fails on a daily basis and that's the nature of the free market.

Same with football clubs really, everyone says that they should run like "proper businesses" - but when you put proper business people in charge, they still f*ck up. They are only saved on the basis they are football clubs...

Or use the railways as an example. We bought the con they could be run like businesses, but the government has to step in to prop them up when they fail. We end up paying for them twice !

If you really want to introduce a Dragon's Den element into a National Health Service then go ahead, start your own hospital somewhere but please make sure it isn't in this country old chap.

Bloody hell, it's the 1980s all over again. When will these people ever learn.

 

[Don Quixote]

That is communism, this country is not communist. Having a few industries in the public sector doesn't mean it isn't going to work.