(This is not satire – unfortunately)
What the f*** is going on?
Is everyone half-asleep?
There’s less than 3 months left to save the NHS and it’s hardly even news.
Once the government’s Health & Social Care Bill receives royal assent, it will be the end of the NHS.
What does that mean?
The Bill will create an independent NHS Board, promote patient choice by increasing competition, and reduce NHS administration costs.
IT MEANS THE NHS WILL BE PRIVATISED – RUN BY PRIVATE COMPANIES ENTIRELY FOR PROFIT.
IT MEANS YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY PRIVATE COMPANIES FOR YOUR HEALTH CARE.
IT MEANS THE NHS WILL NO LONGER EXIST.
The bill is nearly completed – it’s already been through the House of Commons and is nearly through the House of Lords – who have little power to stop it becoming law anyway.
Once it receives royal assent it will be law. This is where we are now:
That means we’re in the final days of universal healthcare free at the point of need in the UK.
How did we get to this point? This government has no mandate to privatise the NHS. It was in neither the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrat’s election manifestos.
In fact, the Tories said the NHS was safe in their hands and there would be no top down reorganisation of the National Health Service.
Both parties lied.
And now, after just over 60 years in existence the NHS is about to be killed off. And that will be that.
Is there anything we can do?
Not much. Except this. Find out your MP’s next surgery. It doesn’t matter what party he or she is from, make an appointment as soon as possible and ask them one question.
Do you believe in democracy?
Presuming they say yes, then ask them what they are doing to oppose this bill when no-one in Britain voted for it.
Don’t let them dodge the question by getting into a discussion about private vs public / Labour vs Conservative or whatever. Stick to the question – nobody voted for these reforms, they were not in any party manifesto so what are you doing to oppose this undemocratic bill being passed?
Remember, there is only one thing MPs really care about. Winning their own seat at the next election. This is even more important to them than their own party winning the next election.
If they think they will be losing constituency votes, they will do whatever it takes to save their precious little asses.
In fact that’s a good definition of democracy.
Elected officials being forced to do the right thing in order to save their precious little asses.
Let’s hope it helps save our precious NHS.
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Please feel free to comment – you don’t need to register and I’m extremely minimal with the moderating – so fire away.
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By the way, if you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a huge favour by sharing this article with other people. Thanks:
let it rest in peace.
Sick of my meagre salary being taxed to fuck to support the poor life choices of the indolent. Fuck the NHS’ frequently paying £20,000 to give tubs a gastric band because he doesn’t know what vegetables are. Fuck the burgeoning costs of the country’s alcoholism. Fuck paying for other people’s obesity epidemic.
The NHS needs to change, and the public sector has shown itself time and again to be home to the most inefficient institutions in the country. Roll on the private!!
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I for one would be dead if it wasn’t for the NHS. I do not have any ‘spare’ money to pay for insurance.
If they kill the NHS will I get back my National Insurance and Tax that I have and still contribute for this service?
If we can afford illegal wars and ‘save’ banks why can’t we afford to save the NHS?
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I think your bitterness and bile has clouded your understanding of exactly what this blog post is about!
It’s about lies, deception & vested interests from our elected political representatives that will ultimately result in a USA-type healthcare system! Fucking unbelievable Maxy boy.
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Hope you’ve got the money to pay for expensive treatment if you or your family ever need it Max. In the US people regularly have to take out large mortgages to pay for their treatments.
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Hear hear Emma. Well put.
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IF THE GOVERNMENT PUT BACK THE MONEY THEYVE STOLE FROM PEOPLE AND THIS COUNTRY, THE NHS WOULD BE SAVED, AS FAR AS IM CONCERNED THEY ARE MURDERERS AND CONMEN AND HAVE KILLED GREAT BRITAIN.
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So what do we do ?? as in .. tell us what to do !!
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This will be severely bad news for me 😦 I can’t get a job because of my psoriasis and I can’t claim disability for it either and now I’m going to be left to rot for something I can’t even fucking help?!?!?!?!
I don’t believe in any of this 2012 shit that’s being talked about “Mayan prophecies” but when I see things like this and when hardly anybody pays attention to it then I sit there and think to myself “let’s hope the end of the world really is nigh”
Let’s also hope Max loses his job just as this thing is brought in if it does pass. See how he fairs when he is thrown on the dump like most of us have been.
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I hate paying for things. Grrr!!!
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I trained under the ‘Old School’ of Nursing. I believed, and still do, that care should be available to all! I didn’t want to have to wait until it was confirmed that ‘x’ had insurances before being treated! The NHS gives a great service, and should ALWAYS be free to all!
Max, this is what ‘PRIVATE INSURANCE’ has always been there for, those wanting to go ‘Private’.
I have to pay for my own treatment, because this is not covered by the NHS Policy in this area. So what? Insurances might not take on ‘Pre-exhisting’ conditions either! I didn’t ask for my illness, (Yes I’m Disabled now.) But I sure as hell didn’t vote for the demise of the NHS!
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Sell your hoose and c’mon up north of the border #nhssafeinscottishhands
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Well we still have to pay for it. Just not at the point of need. And the price doesn’t – shouldn’t – include profits to be spent on shareholders’ dividends and top managers’ multi-million bonuses.
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Yes, right. Insurance companies are only interested in the most healthy people. Nobody voted for the demise of the NHS because it wasn’t in any of the manifestos.
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Good idea. You Scots had better start preparing for mass immigration from your third world neighbour on your southern border.
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Private health means under-treatment for the poor but also over-treatment for the rich, in order to milk the insurance companies. In the US, there are endless interventions and heavy duty pharmaceuticals handed out to the rich, some of which will certainly cause more damage and unnecessary side-effects than non-treatment.
How can one be sure that every privately paid doctor has your best interests at heart when his pay cheque is involved?
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Max is a bit of a knob int he? =)
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Yes – profit can never be the best way to decide on treatment.
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It’s entirely possible.
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But that means you’d have to pay for treatment of your tourettes
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Pah insurance in the states, you get your ass taxed hard, insurance companies influence the state… Doctors look at your guts spewing out of your chest and ask if you are insured? that’s nuts. Doctors shouldn’t work for money they work because society needs a respectable figure that has the intelligence to perform, its a duty not a high rolling city job. You want money and not respect go do something else, you got the brain for it!?
Trust the UK to americanise our model even if the u.s have one of the worst systems in the world, and are trying to gain some semblance of ours.
We are raping ourselves if this bill goes wrong. Think not of your own situation but for a possible future child of yours who relies on the NHS in their future. Our dentists already suck, and people avoid them due to cost consequences… or do you prefer our dental situation to our G.P set up.
Your answer is Heck no, no need to respond!
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Im going to Scotland
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To see where we are heading, look no further than the brilliant documentary ‘Sicko’ by Michael Moore. It’s in 12 parts, but well worth watching, scary, very scary!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8NPXr25PsQ Part 2 is missing, but you will get the gist.
Hopefully, Tom allows links – If not, I fully understand.
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Yes – I allow links especially if they’re excellent like this one.
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Good point about dentists – do we want our doctors to go the same way?
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Why cant we stop this then. This is a ‘Democracy’ isnt it? Thats what we are all led to believe. I am presently studying law to enable me to understand how this can happen. Unless we are armed with knowledge we cannot change anything. Blogging raises profile of the case, but a million people saying how bad it is will not change it. Be proactive and become a politition or lawyer or help with a campaign by someone else, dont just sit and moan, with enough ooomph we can cause change.
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It wont happen because the Scots are funded by the English!!! When we go to pot we will take you all down with us!!
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Yeah Max, go for the US mode where the poor just die and everyone with a job pays taxes AND health insurance. Its ironic that the NHS is actually more efficient than that!!
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You wait till your first serious illness! Private healthcare is fine for hernias and piles, but cancer or heart disease? The NHS is the only adequate provider.
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I hate to be pedantic about such a serious issue, but it is only the NHS in England that is under sentence of death. In the Celtic countries we have voted for governments of a more social democratic hue, and our NH services are protected from the vultures being let loose in England to scavenge every last scrap of profit – and we even eschewed the PFI Scam which was the start of the rot in England.
Claire – you are right to question how a government that did not achieve a majority in England, and which did not include its savage plans to wreck a valued social institution in its manifesto – in fact it promised the opposite – can get away with this. Is there no remedy in Law for this?
I would say that the remedy would be to vote for a different party – but there is nothing to choose between them in England. We, the Celts, feel for you pain, England.
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Yes – we could do with a bit of Celtic culture to dilute the anglo-saxon savagery being unleashed here in England…
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Take it from someone living in the US….. THIS WILL SUCK!!!! Healthcare in the US is expensive and unless you work for a good company with good benefits it will cost a fortune for coverage…. even with coverage… alot of procedures are “excluded” lol … its a joke!!
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agreed.. I live here..
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that is a great documentary….. I live in the US…. our healthcare system sucks… alot of people are without coverage at all, and some employers cover only the “employed” I know of one family that pays 1000 per month to cover the wife and three kids… NOT a good choice to eliminate NHS… EVERYTHING in that documentary will happen in England…
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Were I as self centred and condemnatory of others as you appear to be I would die of shame. If you are ever in a situation needing help, being mugged, having cancer, being old and infirm, I hope you do not have to rely on people like yourself but will be cared for by one of us decent people.
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my mum used the ‘I am in Wales’ excuse to not bother signing petitions last year. Please Celtic Nations we need your support. there are some Celts left in England who need protecting from the Saxon and Norman conquerors who stole all our land and now charge us to live on it. Aneurin fought for an NHS for us all.
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Think of the birth of the NHS.
In the trenches in 1916 ‘Hooray Henries’ suffered alongside ‘chavs’ and realized that human sins, virtues and hopes are shared. They noticed that intelligence and stupidity spread randomly regardless of rank. From the dead and shattered bodies of these men came an understanding that one person is no ‘better’ than another. As their parents were washed away and these young men came to power, the division in wealth between rich and poor narrowed. With so many disabled, proper care of the sick was recognised as important. The Well-fare State was taken by workers, who knew they were every bit as good as their peers and given by peers who knew they were no better than those who were poorer.
It was a time of hope.
Very little good comes from war, but the NHS was fuelled by it and is one of human-kinds most noble achievements from all of history. To dismantle the NHS is to dishonour the men who died in those trenches.
On a lighter note: it is fiscal madness to interpose an extra tier between patient and treatment. A tier which will cost money to execute as well as cream off a profit. We are supposedly in dire financial straits so why go to a mechanism which will cost more per unit of treatment?
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I think the answer to that Bridget, is that the Tories aren’t actually doing this for financial or economic reasons. They’re doing it for political reasons. They don’t like the NHS or anything run by the state so they’re using a smokescreen of ‘reform’ and the economic crisis to get rid of the welfare state.
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Oh so true, tories dont like welfare, they love to use the guise of charity to help the unfortunate, as then you will be ‘umble and grateful’. So Dickensian, so topical!! They cant use a blanket religion to hold us down so they take away all our safety nets. We need the NHS because we need fairness, not lots of privelige and dosh because you came out of the right fanny!!
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PS I’m a celt, I’m down here in Cornwall!
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“…..because you came out of the right fanny.” – nicely put. 🙂
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Could anyone out there estimate how much NHS income would be generated if all nurses and doctors who were trained by the NHS, who then moved to private practice, were to pay back the cost of their training??
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I moved from the UK to USA just 5 months ago, already I miss the NHS.
Yes it’s sometimes hard to get an appointment or you have to see a doctor a few times about the same thing.
BUT, its still better than having to pay healthcare insurance and knowing that many doctors will be looking to overcharge/carry out unnecessary tests and investigations and then charge a huge amount.
Not all costs will be covered by the insurance- I know of someone whose husband was dying of cancer and their insurance company cut them off.
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Yes – why are the Tories always so intent on following the US model? They gave us Reagan’s ridiculous trickle-down theory in the 80s and now they’re intent on giving us the US model of health care which even the US is trying to get rid of.
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I can hardly believe this is happening. Upset, outraged and cannot believe libdem rank & file can be so sheep-like.We will not forget or forgive.
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absolutely well said how much per day does the so called war on terror cost so that a few rich bastards can make more money out of the rest of us? some people are so blinded by the crap that IS in the news that they wouldn’t know their arse from their elbow if asked in a private health clinic!!
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Coming soon to the uk. return of the work-houses, owner IDS.
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