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Post by aubrey on Aug 12, 2010 9:22:25 GMT
But you presumably supported the income distribution that took place under Bush (not just traxes: wages as well). But the lower paid deserve their lot, don't they?
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Post by aubrey on Aug 12, 2010 9:30:10 GMT
My savings would have lasted about two weeks for the treatment I have, which I've been having for about 2 tears now, at £900 a week. There was no decision; it was either have the treatment or die, in 10 to 20 days.
This world you live in where everyone has savings of hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars is not the world that most people live in.
Insurance has always been beyond me; especially as my condition may be linked to a condition I had when I would have started insurance, so the insurance company would have refused to pay. So, in your world, I'd be dead (most people with my condition, world wide, do die. But they're only poor people, so who gives a toss?).
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Aug 14, 2010 1:08:26 GMT
Aubrey asked this question: But the lower paid deserve their lot, don't they?
Everyone deserves equal opportunity Aubrey. The lower paid deserve the opportunity to compete. Perhaps they can join the higher paid or even the wealthy.
But the lower paid do not deserve income transfer payments imposed by liberal governments. By this I mean confiscation from the more successful citizens via taxation and redistribution of those confiscated funds to lower income citizens with the obvious aim of getting their votes. This is what I see happening all the time with our Democrats. They could care less about the welfare of the poor people but they do want their votes. Their formula is to confiscate funds from their political opponents (citizens who vote Republican) and then use those funds to buy votes. It's shameful.
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Aug 14, 2010 1:12:19 GMT
Aubrey - It sounds like you found yourself in a health care system that does cater to your personal condition. I'm glad you are able to get the treatments that you need. Congratulations on living in the right country for your health problems.
But your situation is far from universal. As we can see from the article I referenced in an above posting, the UK health services are cutting budgets and denying critically needed treatments to many patients. This is what always happens with government provided healthcare. When push comes to shove, their budgets are more important than your health.
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Post by randomvioce on Aug 14, 2010 8:19:49 GMT
But your situation is far from universal. As we can see from the article I referenced in an above posting, the UK health services are cutting budgets and denying critically needed treatments to many patients. Wait a minute here, this is not a failure of the system, this is an ideoligical drive by the Right to deny millions of British people the right to health care. The Tories where always against the NHS for the exact same reasons that you and your backward culture is against healthcare for working people. The Tories are attempting to starve the NHS to kill it, there is nothing fundimentally wrong with the NHS model per se. Millions of people like Aubrey get treatment in the UK that under your system would be denied healthcare in your Country. That is the bottom line in any debate regarding healthcare. Would Aurbey be dead or bankrupted in our system? The answer is no, so our system is better. Thanks for comming.
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Post by aubrey on Aug 14, 2010 8:38:43 GMT
BA - you have not said anything about the redistribition of wealth under Reagan and the Bushes from the lower income groups tpo the higher income group.
The thing about a capitalist system is that it needs a huge base of the lower paid. This is ok if the wealthy do not keep pilfering off them, as they did under Reagan and Bush. The fact that a very few can maybe make it into the ranks of the wealthy does not make it ok for the rest, who have no chance.
And equality of opportunity all very well, but not if some have a massive head start - for eg - would the younger Bush have got anywhere at all without the wealth and influence of the Bush family behind him?
The Conservatives in the UK have always done their best to destroy the NHS, and they're doing it now. This is not a fault of the NHS, but a fault of the Conservatives.
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Post by mouse on Aug 14, 2010 13:55:45 GMT
The Conservatives in the UK have always done their best to destroy the NHS, and they're doing it now. This is not a fault of the NHS, but a fault of the Conservatives. err the present cuts were instituted by the last government...not the conservatives and if the nhs is in dire straits..who was in power for the preceeeding years do try and get it right
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Post by firedancer on Aug 14, 2010 14:21:59 GMT
Aubrey: I think that is too sweeping a generalisation. I can understand why, as a left-winger you might say that but I think the reality is far more complex. Below are some figures covering the Thatcher and Major years (note Alan Maynard is one of the authors - hardly a Tory supporter). NHS fundingYes, the Tories contracted out a lot of services e.g. cleaning (a mistake I believe because it damaged the sense of 'ownership' and identity NHS that staff felt and led to less control over standards), but Labour equally privatised the NHS by contracting out surgery to private providers to meet its waiting time targets, also by its PFI initiative. The real bill for PFI will start to kick in over the next decade. For some trusts that amounts to 10% of their entire turnover every year and some of the schemes run until 2048. Buildings worth just over £11bn will involve a payback of over £65bn - and that will have to come out of the NHS. Locking the NHS into deals with the private sector will hamstring the NHS for years to come. In effect, Labour was taking the same sort of risk as a house buyer taking out a 120% mortgage while keeping his fingers crossed in expectation of rising income. The reality is neither party wants to destroy the NHS but both have been privatising. I can't speak for the frothing at the mouth right wingers but I seriously doubt Cameron is anti NHS - especially given his personal experience of it with his son.
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Post by randomvioce on Aug 14, 2010 16:02:19 GMT
I can't speak for the frothing at the mouth right wingers but I seriously doubt Cameron is anti NHS - especially given his personal experience of it with his son. Cameron might not hate the NHS but the rest of the buggers do. They have tried to destroy the NHS since the day it was started.
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Post by randomvioce on Aug 14, 2010 16:03:58 GMT
err the present cuts were instituted by the last government...not the conservatives and if the nhs is in dire straits..who was in power for the preceeeding years do try and get it right What cuts are you talking about mouse? It was the Tories that are attempting to dismantle the NHS.
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Post by fretslider on Aug 14, 2010 16:19:26 GMT
err the present cuts were instituted by the last government...not the conservatives and if the nhs is in dire straits..who was in power for the preceeeding years do try and get it right What cuts are you talking about mouse? It was the Tories that are attempting to dismantle the NHS. Are you speaking in the past tense, or are you speaking in the present? The Tories will not dismantle the NHS. Why? Disease does not take social class into consideration.
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Post by mouse on Aug 14, 2010 16:51:21 GMT
and you base that bit of observation on what exactly.. just where do you think the ""buggers"" come from or live....your on another planet...conservatives come in all shapes and sizes..colours and creeds..incomes and education... they are not some isolated group you can point out and say oh lookee there be a tory any more than you can cross your self as a labourite walks across your path you cannot tell by looking....funnily enough
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Post by firedancer on Aug 14, 2010 16:55:07 GMT
RV Way back up the thread you'll notice I defended the NHS against the American system, so take it that I believe in the principles of the NHS and would not like to see any party dismantle it.
However, when I look at something politically I don't start by saying: "I am a left winger - therefore I must believe the Tories are buggers who have always hated the NHS". Equally, nor do I say "I am a right-winger, therefore the NHS must be destroyed" i.e. I don't start from a dogmatic political party standpoint and then try and make the facts fit my prejudices.
I start from the facts and then measure them against the political parties' performance.
And the facts are that both parties have made inroads into privatising the NHS, whether by contracting out clearners like the Tories, or contracting out surgery and building like Labour.
Neither the Tory party or the Labour party are the same as the Tory and Labour parties of 1947, the founding year of the NHS, and the demographics, the health and the needs of the population are different now than sixty-odd years ago. Both parties have been adjusting the NHS to take account of those differences.
Let's leave the political party dogma aside when it comes to health - it's too important for people to have knee-jerk views, whether of right or left.
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Post by mouse on Aug 14, 2010 17:00:37 GMT
err the present cuts were instituted by the last government...not the conservatives and if the nhs is in dire straits..who was in power for the preceeeding years do try and get it right What cuts are you talking about mouse? It was the Tories that are attempting to dismantle the NHS. oh get a grip... the nhs is in dire straights along with the rest of the country and if the cons can get even a little of it sorted out...good for them...gowd knows it needs sorting in casualty the other day with a friend of mine... one woman brought a child with a splinter[err a splinter?? two men were ejected for being violent and fighting some one else needed a bandage changing[in A7E ??] some one else had an apoint ment at the fracture clinic but had over slept and had had the temerity to ring for an ambulance and was kicking off because the ambulance was refused come on...you think the nhs doesnt need reform..go on the front line or work on the wards and see what actually y happens...then come back and say it doesnt need reform..from over staffing in management and bad management to under staffing..waste..and misuse wards were closing and cuts were in place before the election and you know it
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Post by mouse on Aug 14, 2010 17:02:19 GMT
And the facts are that both parties have made inroads into privatising the NHS, whether by contracting out clearners like the Tories, or contracting out surgery and building like Labour. Neither the Tory party or the Labour party are the same as the Tory and Labour parties of 1947, the founding year of the NHS, and the demographics, the health and the needs of the population are different. hear hear
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Post by Big Lin on Aug 14, 2010 17:16:31 GMT
What gets to me is that when I go to a hospital MOST of the outpatients obviously DON'T speak English as their first language and nor do most of the staff!
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Post by mouse on Aug 14, 2010 17:48:10 GMT
What gets to me is that when I go to a hospital MOST of the outpatients obviously DON'T speak English as their first language and nor do most of the staff! have to say the last three hospitals i had dealings with the majority of staff were not foriegn [if one can judge by acent ]...but in each case there have been foriegn patients[judging by dress and acent or inability to speak english] which makes one wonder if these people have insurance to cover their medical care..and who is footing the bill and why those who are not citizens are not required by law to have private insurance
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Post by randomvioce on Aug 14, 2010 18:05:41 GMT
Why? Disease does not take social class into consideration. The Tories will never be happy until they have destroyed the NHS. They have started by dismantling the PCT.
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Post by aubrey on Aug 14, 2010 18:14:50 GMT
I go to a big teaching hospital in London three times a week. There are lots of nurses and patients who seem to come from a different country. Everyone I see can speak English (except one patient; and she can speak some - 1st language, 2nd language - who cares? (one nurse I had knew 4 languages, inc English. I know only one, and that's a Yorks version of it).
Mouse - why do you assume that the foreign people you see getting treatment are somehow fiddling, or at least that they might not be entitled to treatment? That is over suspicious - someone might be getting something they might not be entitled to!! Not, someone's having their life saved by our wonderful health service, regardless of their background, origin, or ability to pay. Besides, we do have reciprocal health arrangements with many countries.
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Post by randomvioce on Aug 14, 2010 18:15:40 GMT
and you base that bit of observation on what exactly.. just where do you think the ""buggers"" come from or live.... Here is a Tory with widespread support throughout the Party, who went on Fox news and gave the views that many Tories think about the NHS. Daniel Hannon is, like it or not, widely respected among your people. Tories hate the NHS and will never be happy until you have destroyed it.
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