Healthcare in the UK
09-12-2020, 02:00 PM
I notice that there has been some discussion of our National Health Service on the Covid-19 threads. Since there are so many people from the USA on here I thought it worth starting a different thread to discuss what to some has been made to see like an extraordinary attachment to our style of healthcare.
Before the 1946 Act of Parliament which paved the way for our welfare state people were left to die if they couldn't manage to haul themselves out of poverty enough to be able to afford assistance. Our class-based society rarely allowed for people to better themselves. In many ways people were as fatalistic as if it were a caste system; people were expected to know their places and where they should fit into the system. The deference paid to those higher up the class ladder was embedded just as it had been during the feudalism of the middle ages or when the established church threatened all sinners with eternal damnation.
The aftermath of the second world war brought many changes including the welfare state which included universal healthcare. For the first time, everyone would be able to access healthcare when they needed it. It wasn't just a given, doctors were vociferous against the proposal. Our healthcare system, free at the point of use, was established in 1948. We have enjoyed the benefits for a very long time. The nature of health support has changed since the time of Margaret Thatcher, who started to unravel many of the advantages of the welfare state. However, even she did not dare go as as far as David Cameron when he introduced a new act in 2012 removing the requirement for the secretary of state to be responsible for the healthcare system. Since that time we have seen greater involvement of insurance companies and private interests with all the paraphernalia of administrators, shareholders and their thirst for profits add to the costs of healthcare. These costs were simply not there under the NHS as originally intended.
At the moment, most of the health care I require is free to me as a patient although I actually grew up in a system where everything, including dental treatment and eye care would not cost me or my parents a penny. Gradually I have seen the erosion of those free services. Now many parts of the healthcare system have been farmed out to private providers and the costs to the nation have increased as more snouts have pushed their way to the trough. A far smaller percentage of what was once spent on the NHS is now used directly for medical services. This is conveniently painted as a scene where the costs have increased very dramatically and the system of healthcare is coming unravelled. It is paving the way for an American-style insurance based system, the like of which fills me and most other citizens of the UK with fear and horror. Political ideology has been used to strip away a safety net that held all of us safe and has been very deeply embedded in our national identity. This was never communism or anything like it. It is shocking to discover just how many members of our present government, their advisors, family members and friends have financial interests in private healthcare or lobbying companies and take a cut from the healthcare services for which we pay our taxes. I as a private citizen am essentially contributing to shareholder dividends. That should be seen as corruption.
Many, if not most of the people in the UK regard with fascination and horror the situation in the USA where a fifth of the population have no access to healthcare. We thank our lucky stars that we don't have that risk here ... yet. One of my children is a dentist in Colorado and for a few days every year he works for free offering dental treatment to people who could not otherwise afford it. I'm guessing that many people live in pain as a daily experience. On those days he sees queues of people that stretch round the block. This strikes him, and me, as utterly barbaric. At the very least it strips away people's dignity as they are forced to see themselves as charity cases rather than functioning citizens in a fully functioning society. How can the richest country in the world treat its citizens so poorly? We don't get it. It seems entirely avoidable. I realise I may be the victim of propaganda, although I do believe my son who has no vested interest in working for free. I have another son in the USA who lost his job a few months ago and is praying that no one in his family becomes ill or has an accident. He cannot afford insurance and the costs of being ill would cripple him. At least he would have the option of returning to the UK ...
So, for the time being, healthcare for most of us is still essentially free, paid for out of our taxes. We have to pay a contribution to the costs of dental care, optician appointments and prescribed medicines. Those costs have risen substantially over my lifetime since the charges were introduced. In many places, such as my nearest town, there is no NHS dental service on offer. I needed a filling replaced a couple of years ago and was shocked at the cost I had to pay. That was merely for the filling. Under the NHS it would have also included routine examination, x-rays and maintenance and it was also shocking that none of this was offered, but it was a taste of the future.
The extraordinary decision to leave the European Union is proving traumatic for many. It will get worse after the end of this year. I don't intend to get into arguments with anyone over this, although I am happy to be corrected if I have made factual errors. I hope this goes some way to explaining our attachment to our heath service.
Here is a video that goes into some more of the detail:
Before the 1946 Act of Parliament which paved the way for our welfare state people were left to die if they couldn't manage to haul themselves out of poverty enough to be able to afford assistance. Our class-based society rarely allowed for people to better themselves. In many ways people were as fatalistic as if it were a caste system; people were expected to know their places and where they should fit into the system. The deference paid to those higher up the class ladder was embedded just as it had been during the feudalism of the middle ages or when the established church threatened all sinners with eternal damnation.
The aftermath of the second world war brought many changes including the welfare state which included universal healthcare. For the first time, everyone would be able to access healthcare when they needed it. It wasn't just a given, doctors were vociferous against the proposal. Our healthcare system, free at the point of use, was established in 1948. We have enjoyed the benefits for a very long time. The nature of health support has changed since the time of Margaret Thatcher, who started to unravel many of the advantages of the welfare state. However, even she did not dare go as as far as David Cameron when he introduced a new act in 2012 removing the requirement for the secretary of state to be responsible for the healthcare system. Since that time we have seen greater involvement of insurance companies and private interests with all the paraphernalia of administrators, shareholders and their thirst for profits add to the costs of healthcare. These costs were simply not there under the NHS as originally intended.
At the moment, most of the health care I require is free to me as a patient although I actually grew up in a system where everything, including dental treatment and eye care would not cost me or my parents a penny. Gradually I have seen the erosion of those free services. Now many parts of the healthcare system have been farmed out to private providers and the costs to the nation have increased as more snouts have pushed their way to the trough. A far smaller percentage of what was once spent on the NHS is now used directly for medical services. This is conveniently painted as a scene where the costs have increased very dramatically and the system of healthcare is coming unravelled. It is paving the way for an American-style insurance based system, the like of which fills me and most other citizens of the UK with fear and horror. Political ideology has been used to strip away a safety net that held all of us safe and has been very deeply embedded in our national identity. This was never communism or anything like it. It is shocking to discover just how many members of our present government, their advisors, family members and friends have financial interests in private healthcare or lobbying companies and take a cut from the healthcare services for which we pay our taxes. I as a private citizen am essentially contributing to shareholder dividends. That should be seen as corruption.
Many, if not most of the people in the UK regard with fascination and horror the situation in the USA where a fifth of the population have no access to healthcare. We thank our lucky stars that we don't have that risk here ... yet. One of my children is a dentist in Colorado and for a few days every year he works for free offering dental treatment to people who could not otherwise afford it. I'm guessing that many people live in pain as a daily experience. On those days he sees queues of people that stretch round the block. This strikes him, and me, as utterly barbaric. At the very least it strips away people's dignity as they are forced to see themselves as charity cases rather than functioning citizens in a fully functioning society. How can the richest country in the world treat its citizens so poorly? We don't get it. It seems entirely avoidable. I realise I may be the victim of propaganda, although I do believe my son who has no vested interest in working for free. I have another son in the USA who lost his job a few months ago and is praying that no one in his family becomes ill or has an accident. He cannot afford insurance and the costs of being ill would cripple him. At least he would have the option of returning to the UK ...
So, for the time being, healthcare for most of us is still essentially free, paid for out of our taxes. We have to pay a contribution to the costs of dental care, optician appointments and prescribed medicines. Those costs have risen substantially over my lifetime since the charges were introduced. In many places, such as my nearest town, there is no NHS dental service on offer. I needed a filling replaced a couple of years ago and was shocked at the cost I had to pay. That was merely for the filling. Under the NHS it would have also included routine examination, x-rays and maintenance and it was also shocking that none of this was offered, but it was a taste of the future.
The extraordinary decision to leave the European Union is proving traumatic for many. It will get worse after the end of this year. I don't intend to get into arguments with anyone over this, although I am happy to be corrected if I have made factual errors. I hope this goes some way to explaining our attachment to our heath service.
Here is a video that goes into some more of the detail:
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