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Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

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Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#141

Post by ben_w »

dkarl wrote: post #101
ben_w wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong country. Despite the joke, the UK isn't an American state.

Do you think it doesn't apply to the UK? I drew on a US example because it was something I could explain in enough detail. Maybe UK economic elites have mastered control of their voters in a way that US elites have not. Although, you'll have to explain which economic elites in the UK decided that Brexit would be to their advantage and how they stole a march on the UK finance industry.

The UK "establishment" is approximately Oxbridge, the Conservative party, the Queen, and the Church of England. These groups are not quite the same thing as economic elites.

The UK also has much stronger spending (and content) limits on electoral campaigns compared to the US.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#142

Post by selfhoster11 »

Nokinside wrote: post #14
DethNinja wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t buy that explanation. Democracy turned out to be easily manipulatable with large sums of money and media control. At this point, an average person can’t have much of an affect on how government is acting. Very few people can take a day off to protest, and even if they do, protests tend to be meaningless too. I’m not saying that average person is blameless but most of the fault lies with the ruling classes.

>Democracy turned out to be easily manipulatable with large sums of money and media control. People being easy to manipulate is feature of humanity, not evidence that democracy does not work. People are in charge for allowing that to happens, allowing to continue etc. If things go shit under heavy influencing and manipulation it's the failure of the people. "ruling classes" in democracy works is the fault of the non…

> People being easy to manipulate is feature of humanity, not evidence that democracy does not work.

Maybe it's both. Much like communism assumes altrustic spherical humans in a vacuum, so does democracy assume that each voter will both bother to vote, and that they are rational enough to vote close to what they actually want without being swayed.

This could be evidence that democracy, much like communism, does not work very well.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#143

Post by robertlagrant »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #139
robertlagrant wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At this point, an average person can’t have much of an affect on how government is acting. Very few people can take a day off to protest, and even if they do, protests tend to be meaningless too. The older I get, the more I believe the only real voting someone can do is with their wallet.

And even that is mostly bullshit, if you don't happen to be flush with money so you can actually afford to throw the weight of your wallet's contents around.

It's more fundamental than that. Prices and features of low-cost things and services are equally picked in this manner.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#144

Post by Broken_Hippo »

brutusborn wrote: post #77
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me, if you are having a heart attack or have had a stroke, how likely are you to have the mental fortitude required to realize that not only is there a for-profit emergency service, but you can pay to get seen now? Probably not very likely. If your emergency is urgent but not actually life threatening, then you might. You might - might - think of it if you have gall bladder or appendix types of pain, if you aren…

Your strawmam is accurate, stroke survivors will need an ambulance. But you're forgetting that a lot of people get driven to emergency by friends or family. And if those bystanders pass a private hospital on the way to public emergency, they could decide their friend / family members life is worth the extra cost. Of course it wouldn't work for everyone, but it would ease the pressure on a failing system. Also your to…

I drove my father to the hospital when he was having a stroke. To be fair, I didn't know until he told the nurses. Just because someone is being driven by family doesn't mean that it isn't serious nor that there is realistically a chance to call around because of price.

I don't care if you find my tone constructive, by the way. The issues I've raise are real issues, and if you can't explain how you'd get around these and still be sure to have the same quality of care for the poorest of people, it isn't a good plan. Unless, you know, the "separate but equal" (Which rarely works) is your goal.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#145

Post by Nokinside »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #142
Nokinside wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Democracy turned out to be easily manipulatable with large sums of money and media control. People being easy to manipulate is feature of humanity, not evidence that democracy does not work. People are in charge for allowing that to happens, allowing to continue etc. If things go shit under heavy influencing and manipulation it's the failure of the people. "ruling classes" in democracy works is the fault of the non…

> People being easy to manipulate is feature of humanity, not evidence that democracy does not work. Maybe it's both. Much like communism assumes altrustic spherical humans in a vacuum, so does democracy assume that each voter will both bother to vote, and that they are rational enough to vote close to what they actually want without being swayed. This could be evidence that democracy, much like communism, does not w…

I don't think so. Communism has an idea of what should happen next, democracy does not. Democracy is open to change, for whatever people choose, even quitting democracy.

Democracy is always changing, always on move and dangerous. That's why I like democracy. Functioning democracy can even end democracy and choose tyranny.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#147

Post by pjc50 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #127
ectopod wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have a system with no spare capacity a sudden spike in demand causes queue lengths to grow but they never get shorter again . That's the theory. In reality, the rising death rate will cause a drop in demand.

That could be true of some queueing systems, but its certainly not true of all queuing systems. It is certainly not true of this system because you cannot stay in the queue forever. Over the long term this will converge on a steady state determined by rate of arrival and rate of departure, treated or otherwise, and nothing else.

> It is certainly not true of this system because you cannot stay in the queue forever.

This is true, and people can drop out of the queue by dying. The death rate will increase until the queue is balanced.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#148

Post by pjc50 »

refurb wrote: post #73
pjc50 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't arguing that the vote was manipulated in the UK, rather that the voters were misled, especially by the partisan media.

I know. What I'm saying is that what people see as manipulation of voters (nobody could ever believe that!) is actually just another valid opinion that you so happen to disagree with. Nobody was deceived. Nobody was manipulated. The voters just don't agree with you on this issue.

This is silly: all kinds of promises were made for Brexit, and if they weren't delivered then those expecting them are at least disappointed, and if there was no reasonable way they could have been delivered and no real effort to deliver them, then they absolutely were deceived.

How did the "£350m for the NHS" bus work out?

> actually just another valid opinion

Some opinions - sky is green, earth is flat - aren't valid.

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#149

Post by pjc50 »

trappist wrote: post #135
buro9 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Conservative Party have been in power for 12 years. When they gained power they pursued a policy of "austerity" to reduce the size of the govt and local govt, reduce the funding of nationally funded things, and to replace such govt owned things with "public private partnerships". This can be seen everywhere from social care (private care homes), schools (academy schools), transport (where area contracts are bid f…

NIH budget has increased over 40% since 2015. https://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/pdfs/FY22/spending-hist/Me...

That set of figures is for the US and therefore completely irrelevant?

Re: Collapse of emergency healthcare in England may be costing 500 lives every week

#150

Post by pjc50 »

DanBC wrote: post #117
jrochkind1 wrote: post #68

I hadn't (here in the USA) heard anything about "collapse of emergency healthcare in England" -- can anyone provide some links for some context? What is actually going on, and (to the extent people know/educated guess) why? Have wait times been gradually increasing, or has there been a sudden increase? ("collapse" sounds sudden?) Etc etc.

For years people have been raising the warning about the pressures on healthcare system, and for years the conservative party have asked the NHS to do more with less. What does collapse look like? Well, in the early days, it looks very gentle. The four hour wait for ED treatment goes up a bit. Healthcare people say "Look! This is concerning!" and politicians say "eh, it's just winter pressure, we know things are roug…

As we've learned from COVID, it doesn't matter what casualties the system inflicts if the press aren't willing to see it like that.
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