[News] Say your goodbyes to free health care...

[wellquickwoody]

Insurances are ok in the right hands. Many insurers find get out clauses, and in the USA many people are bankrupted due to hospital bills.
My cousin's daughter died of liver cancer in her 40s because the insurance company refused to pay out, and she couldn't afford the treatment.

I get that. But necessary treatment here is free. It s the varicose veins, boob jobs, pinned ears etc they are pay only.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Blue passports !!!!!

Relevance to healthcare?

Ooh, I know this one, I think.

Is it "The blue ones, don't come with an EHIC card"?

 

[The Clamp]

Miss-leading article and miss-leading thread title. Some here are Guido Fawkes, you are The Canary. Both equally worth avoiding politically.

And I'm left of centre.

Plenty of coverage in other outlets. All reporting the same news. The NHS is now on the table in trade negotiations. Which let’s face it, it was always going to be. It’s about all the U.K. have to offer, that and huge tax relief.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Similar to the PFI stuff in the 90s, I'll make a judgement when/if something changes. Can't see it in my lifetime. The present business model is unsustainable with increasing population and longer life expectancy with less folks paying into the system, so something needs to change sometime.

It would be entirely sustainable were it not for the self-destructive internal market and other 'management' initiatives that have taken power away from the actual bloody doctors, nurses, physios etc and turned the NHS into a mess.

If I were a tory I would deliberately run down the NHS so that people start to cry out for a Change. A Rethink. A Fix for the Unsustainable.

I am in a teams meeting right now, dealing with student final marks in my department at a decent uni in London, with a hospital attached. Too many of my colleagues are of the phenotype that embraces noisemaking in the context of compliance with initiatives, many their own, for upgrading practice and standards, and standard setting in an ongoing commitment to excellence. You couldn't make it up. Like a cross between the early noughties Leeds United and latterday Watford.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Ooh, I know this one, I think.

Is it "The blue ones, don't come with an EHIC card"?

Pretty convoluted, but well done!

Well played you.

 

[beorhthelm]

Plenty of coverage in other outlets. All reporting the same news. The NHS is now on the table in trade negotiations. Which let’s face it, it was always going to be. It’s about all the U.K. have to offer, that and huge tax relief.

presumably so is education, policing, welfare, roads, housing, etc. since they havent had explicit exclusions either.

or perhaps general domestic policy is considered outside scope of trade?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

So you’re saying the Tories didn’t vote down an amendment to protect the NHS from foreign control in Brexit trade deals? Fantastic! I knew it was the hard left making it all up!

The key word being control. Control is and will always remain with the Health Secretary. There are already foreign companies providing services to the NHS but they don't control it. It's the usual outburst from the drama queens such as the OP.

 

[Gwylan]

If you can buy drugs cheaper somewhere else, why would vote to potentially stop this from happening. That would be madness.

You've completely missed the point - the idea is to make drugs more expensive.

The cost of drugs in the UK is very low - the US pays more than twice as much. The whole idea of this bill is to pay more not to make them cheaper - it's something that US pharma companies are very keen to pursue.

Obviously, if the NHS drug bill goes up, it will cost more to run the NHS. So, there'll be a need to introduce more charges.

 

[Is it PotG?]

It would be entirely sustainable were it not for the self-destructive internal market and other 'management' initiatives that have taken power away from the actual bloody doctors, nurses, physios etc and turned the NHS into a mess.

If I were a tory I would deliberately run down the NHS so that people start to cry out for a Change. A Rethink. A Fix for the Unsustainable.

I am in a teams meeting right now, dealing with student final marks in my department at a decent uni in London, with a hospital attached. Too many of my colleagues are of the phenotype that embraces noisemaking in the context of compliance with initiatives, many their own, for upgrading practice and standards, and standard setting in an ongoing commitment to excellence. You couldn't make it up. Like a cross between the early noughties Leeds United and latterday Watford.

Do you think that an institution such as the NHS would benefit from a shake-up in this respect, the clear out of pointless administrators and alike?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Similar to the PFI stuff in the 90s, I'll make a judgement when/if something changes. Can't see it in my lifetime. The present business model is unsustainable with increasing population and longer life expectancy with less folks paying into the system, so something needs to change sometime.

It would help if the elite paid more taxes instead of keeping them offshore.

Why do you think Aaron Banks has been so vocally campaigning for Brexit and trade deals with America? Could it possibly be to do with the fact that his business is in insurances?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I’m not convinced the general public really care. Especially not die hard Tory’s. The public were out clapping and calling for pay rises. The government just voted down pay rises for NHS workers.
I have seen that mentioned once on here.

Now people are able to drink in pubs and get a Happy Meal...NHS? Oh yeah, didn’t we bang a pot for them? I say didn’t we bang that pot for nurses, Steve?What did we do, Steve?
We banged a pot, Linda.
We banged a pot.

 

[The Clamp]

presumably so is education, policing, welfare, roads, housing, etc. since they havent had explicit exclusions either.

or perhaps general domestic policy is considered outside scope of trade?

Well, you’re quite right, we shouldn’t put anything past this particular government. However, the NHS has one huge lure for foreign interests; Control of pharmaceuticals. MASSIVE money for anyone who gets control of that.

 

[beorhthelm]

You've completely missed the point - the idea is to make drugs more expensive.

The cost of drugs in the UK is very low - the US pays more than twice as much. The whole idea of this bill is to pay more not to make them cheaper - it's something that US pharma companies are very keen to pursue.

Obviously, if the NHS drug bill goes up, it will cost more to run the NHS. So, there'll be a need to introduce more charges.

could you reference the part of the bill that covers this increase?

 

[wellquickwoody]

You've completely missed the point - the idea is to make drugs more expensive.

The cost of drugs in the UK is very low - the US pays more than twice as much. The whole idea of this bill is to pay more not to make them cheaper - it's something that US pharma companies are very keen to pursue.

Obviously, if the NHS drug bill goes up, it will cost more to run the NHS. So, there'll be a need to introduce more charges.

Personally I have found Ventolin to be far cheaper over the counter in both Europe and Australia than the prescription charge in the UK. Not the end of a discussion about drug costs, but it is not a black or white answer either.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

[tweet]1285471489945411584[/tweet]

900,000 public sector workers are getting a pay rise, but not nurses.

Rather than believing everything you read on Twitter actually look into the background.

1. The Government HASN'T voted down nurses pay rises - there was no vote on them ( despite what Clampy implies )
2. Their pay rise review is at a different time - there is no a single indication they won't get a pay rise at the time of their review.

 

[Gwylan]

could you reference the part of the bill that covers this increase?

Personally I have found Ventolin to be far cheaper over the counter in both Europe and Australia than the prescription charge in the UK. Not the end of a discussion about drug costs, but it is not a black or white answer either.

I put up two links. One showed that the cost of drugs is 2.5 times the cost of drugs in the US. That's talking about total cost - there may well be some drugs that are cheaper elsewhere (and as the OECD report shows there are European countries that are cheaper than the UK too)

And to quote from the CNN story (clearly not a far left news source) "A common complaint of the US pharmaceutical lobby is that other nations, including the United Kingdom, have strict regulatory systems and arrangements where governments subsidize medicine development that they believe keeps the price of drugs artificially low. This, they claim, makes it very hard for US companies to compete.

The UK system for valuing medicines is particularly complicated. It looks at the clinical effectiveness of a drug, and the bang for buck value of each medicine. It also takes into consideration input from drug companies before determining what it believes is a fair price.

The United States has publicly declared that it would demand not only that its companies have "full market access" to the United Kingdom, but also that "government regulatory reimbursement regimes are transparent." That would likely mean a provision allowing US drug companies to have a greater say in how the United Kingdom values medicines for the NHS, similar to one included in the US trade deal with South Korea last year."

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Rather than believing everything you read on Twitter actually look into the background.

1. The Government HASN'T voted down nurses pay rises - there was no vote on them ( despite what Clampy implies )
2. Their pay rise review is at a different time - there is no a single indication they won't get a pay rise at the time of their review.

The tweet is from the nurses. Argue with them.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

If you can buy drugs cheaper somewhere else

In the context of on-patent pharmaceuticals, what exactly do you mean by this?

I’m of the view prices will increase in the U.K. once the U.K. is outside of the EU. The two main reasons being the cost of a separate UK drug submission and also the loss of the EU “Aspen” brake on prices ie you won’t be protected any more.

 

[The Clamp]

I think what is being (deliberately?) overlooked by some on here is this simple fact;

Our government guaranteed that the NHS would not be on the table in trade negotiations.
Our government has just voted so the NHS can be on the table in trade negotiations.
That alone should ring alarm bells.

Now, there’s a reason they’ve done that. And I don’t believe that reason will be in our best interests. The Tory track record supports that belief.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

The tweet is from the nurses. Argue with them.

You posted / re-published it on here. The tweet is misleading and you've re-posted misleading information to score a political point.