Speedfit technique

Partly true, I'd say. The people with good healthcare insurance systems know that socialised medicine will be inferior in service and routine ailment treatment quality, to that which they are used to. However, the American poor would love to have any form of healthcare at a reasonable cost, socialised or not! The American small businesses would love to have an NHS system, as they face astronomical on costs for each employee, if they provide health cover.

For those old enough, consider buying a subscription to AARP, which routinely looks at healthcare for the over 50's.

Regards Capitol

Customers have a choice both of financing organisation and

Not true if your employer is underwriting the scheme. He selects the insurer and the insurer selects the doctor, roughly speaking!

Regards Capitol

In article , Huge writes

Funnily enough, so do mine.

Strange, it's not the reaction I have had. Mind you, it's a huge country; attitudes will vary wildly. I get a kick out of telling Americans that we right-pondians have to have a licence to watch TV. They react with horror to _that_ :-)

In article , Andy Hall writes

I seem to remember Hillary Clinton ran for office on a welfare reform ticket which would have increased the level of state medical care, but it was wildly unpopular (because of the tax increases it would need?) and she quietly dropped the idea.

IMO they were right. However, they did not have the courage to do the job properly. The railways should be treated as any other transport business. I don't hear too many moans about Easyjet and Ryanair, or the frequently unsubsidised bus companies. Railfares need to rise to an economic level, which provides a real return on capital, or shut the system down. AIUI, we spent more capital on railways last year, than on roads. As roads are say 95% of our transport system, this is clearly stupidity. I cannot see why millions of people travel to work in the centre of major cities, if the businesses had to pay the wages to cover the real cost of rail travel, then the work would soon move to where the people are. This problem was recognised in the middle of the last century, but as is usual for politicians, they have forgotten the plot again.

Regards Capitol

That depends on the employer and the insurer, IME.

The USA uses two beds to a room frequently!

Regards Capitol

That's what it comes down to, "I'm aright, sod you"....

I experienced an interesting of example of this recently...

Our first sprog needed glasses recently, and I like many of my age, remember NHS glasses and all the patient choice you got with those (i.e. you can have brown, or black and that's it, if they don't fit your face, or rip your ears off, then tough!). Hence I was expecting something of the same. The NHS provided the consultation free of charge, however they apparently no longer get involved with the production or supply of the specs.

Instead you get a voucher which you take to any private sector optician, choose from a wide variety of frames, and hand over the voucher. The value of it depends on the prescription - more complex ones attracting more value in the voucher. Any shortfall between what the voucher is worth and what glasses you choose, you pay yourself.

The result was a little girl with a set of specs that she likes, and is happy to wear, and me 22 quid lighter. (I believe there is still a way to get a fully funded set should your financial needs dictate). Also they were delivered in 4 working days during a busy time of the year (and that included custom made lenses to keep the edge thickness of them down since they were going in such a small frame).

While not a perfect system, this seemed like a far more sensible way of dealing with the whole procedure since it got the NHS out of the delivery side altogether. I can see a number of services where a variation on the same system could improve patient care and choice, and at the same time unburden the NHS of jobs it has no need to do.

Not quite true, I don't think any cable company in the UK has ever yet made a profit. I await correction.

(That was also true of the railways, which were privately financed, AIUI, not one railway company ever made a profit for it's shareholders before nationalisation, most lost their money.)

Regards Capitol

You seem to be putting words into his mouth....

Out of curiosity however, what would be your objection (if any) to a system where if you could "opt out" of primary NHS care (i.e. purchased your own comprehensive cover for all things from GP services to drugs or hospitalisation, excluding perhaps trauma/casualty care). As a result you received a tax discount to partially offset the cost - note that I said partially offset, not totally. The result would be you are still paying toward the NHS for the general welfare of society, however you personally would no longer be placing any burden on it.

You are reading what you want to read, not what is being written.

Wrong I'm afraid. Witness the added congestion when there are train/tube strikes. Considering a lot of people stay at home or use buses, the long term absence of public transport would be a lot worse.

OK it may possible for you to drive, and it may be possible for you to schedule travel outside the rush hour, but that does not apply for everyone else.

This demonstrates it is not essential for *you*, but is essential for society as a whole, on which you rely.

Please, post some research or references to back up your unfounded assumptions, excluding your own personal experience.

cheers, Pete.

Anyone have a figure for the amount of extra money this current government has spent / is spending on consultants and quangos of all sorts? I know it runs into the billions, and that is before you get into the increased costs of central government itself.

No, what I'm doing is trying to look into the future, or at least what

I don't see how that is any benefit to anyone but those who could, the result is that there is going to be less money over all in the NHS pot and more staff are going to enticed into the private sector. If the private sector paid for the training then it's not such a problem but, on the whole, they don't as such they are obtaining trained staff at the expense of the NHS.

As a result

But what happens if you need scrapping of a road some place, society (and the NHS) isn't going to just pass by, I can see yet another layer of management being introduced to recover NHS costs from private medical insurance, although it could probably be incorporated into the present system of treatment cost claims after RTA's etc.

No, as I said, I was reading what might happen in the future where vouchers are concerned, remember that dental and eye care was free at one time but that changed to save costs (aka taxation income).

The more a society is left to money grabbing bastards the worse it becomes. Thatcher wuith mass poverty, the 1930s under the Tories, Vistoriana.

Henry George saw that when a society gets richer a strata of people become relatively poorer.

A very brief introduction to Georgism

That could be why that CPS computer system is in such a state.... instead of concentrating on extracting money with manaces from absent fathers, they keep getting people phone up for 100 assorted resistors and some heat shrink!

That's OK for something like the actually spec's, but what if you were faced with;

Well you voucher allows you to have a very basic eye examination but if you care to pay X quid more you can have the full test.

Ok if you have the extra money but not so good if you don't.

Optional extras are one thing, full treatment and care is another.

Curtailing freedom of speach... is that A socialist ideal?

Ranting? There are others doing far more.

What tripe. The airways are vast. railways need well, er, er, rail lines. That all interconnect. A monopoly. Best kept that way and run properly