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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

#221

Post by jmfldn »

adamredwoods wrote: post #174

The thread reminds me of the Guardian's podcast "Sewage Sleuths" which uncovered catastrophic sewage being dumped into England and Wales's rivers and streams. Very informative and enlightening how bad some government infrastructure can be (hint: in the podcast they also enlightened HOW the failure got bad). https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/aug/15/sewage-sl...

It's a failure of privitisation 30 years in the making since water and waste management was privatised in 1989 here in the UK. Of course you can lay some blame at the door of the regulator but let's not forget the tens of billions that have been siphoned off to shareholders and fatcat CEOs, some of whom are arguably criminally negligent and should be put on trial for the catastrophes that have become apparent in recent years.

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

#222

Post by groby_b »

imtringued wrote: post #216
WalterBright wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game in socialism is also making a lot of money.

The Soviet Union seems to have failed that game by collapsing through external debt.

The game has never been to make money for the country, or the government.

And IIRC, a lot of people in power in the USSR made a lot of money out of the collapse of the USSR.

Heck, there's some mid-level KGB dude who made $200 billion off it.

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

#223

Post by tailspin2019 »

simonswords82 wrote: post #130
pjc50 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any and all government bashing They're doing incredibly badly despite friendly press support, are leaderless after the misconduct got too much even for the Tory party, and are facing some really serious problems this winter if energy prices match projections. In the meantime they waste time on culture war nonsense. They're not being bashed enough .

Well bashing doesn't appear to be changing anything so can we try something else perhaps?

I would suggest that the bashing contributed to Boris Johnson being forced (correctly in my opinion) to resign. Not to mention causing many of his former colleagues to read the writing on the wall and finally admit that his honesty was "questionable" (either on TV leadership debates and/or by way of resignation).

If the general public was instead expressing extreme satisfaction with the government, I find it unlikely that this would have happened.

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

#224

Post by raydev »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #171
dmix wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No comment on unions but I never understood the salary caps, especially that new one for nurses. That's the opposite of what we should be doing.

It's the opposite of what you'd be doing if you wanted the system to function correctly... But what if you didn't? Because you wanted to replace it, but it was dangerous to say that out loud? The Conservatives (and to some extent some Liberals as well) have been playing a long game -- since the 70s when it was introduced -- to get rid of medicare. It's incredibly popular with Canadians as a whole, but if you take con…

I'm still an outsider (recent immigrant to Canada) but my impression of right vs left politicians here reminds me very much of Dems vs Reps in the US.

When the right obtains power, they incrementally and consistently put the pieces in place to ensure that the quality of gov-provided services decreases over time. Then when the left obtains power, they simply maintain status quo, never improving or fixing the problems created by the previous administration.

And of course, we have issues where practically no one shows up to vote and a widely-disliked premier gets a majority government, a premier who will continue to ensure the gov-funded options get worse.

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

#225

Post by WalterBright »

asdff wrote: post #219
Jensson wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem: Politicians are corrupt! Solution: Give more power to politicians! Lack of power corrupts, need to give them more until they stop being corrupt! Not sure why anyone thinks that would work.

I really don't understand how people can simultaneously believe that governments are corrupt and the private sector would support the public's interests. Guess who is corrupting government: the private sector who only support their own interests.

I know this is difficult to understand how it works, but the beauty of the free market is everyone benefits while selfishly working for their own self-interest.

Socialism, however, requires altruistic behavior, and very few people are consistently altruistic and self-sacrificing for the common good.

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

#226

Post by asdff »

WalterBright wrote: post #225
asdff wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand how people can simultaneously believe that governments are corrupt and the private sector would support the public's interests. Guess who is corrupting government: the private sector who only support their own interests.

I know this is difficult to understand how it works, but the beauty of the free market is everyone benefits while selfishly working for their own self-interest. Socialism, however, requires altruistic behavior, and very few people are consistently altruistic and self-sacrificing for the common good.

How can people benefit when in the free market system consumers are seen as a resource to be exploited?

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

#227

Post by WalterBright »

asdff wrote: post #226
WalterBright wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is difficult to understand how it works, but the beauty of the free market is everyone benefits while selfishly working for their own self-interest. Socialism, however, requires altruistic behavior, and very few people are consistently altruistic and self-sacrificing for the common good.

How can people benefit when in the free market system consumers are seen as a resource to be exploited?

Because the seller, in a free market, has to please is customer. The way to please the customer is to have the customer benefit from the transaction.

For example, how long do you think McDonald's would last if its McBurgers tasted bad? McDonald's success is extremely tied to customer satisfaction.

Tossing the ball back to you, under socialism, why would the socialist service care if you're pleased with the service or not?

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

#228

Post by MichaelCollins »

oliwarner wrote: post #116

This isn't a collapse of emergency healthcare, it's a very predicted collapse of community social care: hospitals can't discharge if they need a care home place that doesn't exist. Without inpatient bed availability, ERs and AMUs can't admit to specialties and everything gums up at the front door. Let's be clear: we do need many more doctors and nurses, but the existing ones can't do their jobs because their wards ha…

> This isn't a collapse of emergency healthcare, it's a very predicted collapse of community social care: hospitals can't discharge if they need a care home place that doesn't exist. Without inpatient bed availability, ERs and AMUs can't admit to specialties and everything gums up at the front door.

How does that manifest as ambulance wait times? Do you think ambulance drivers are sitting around for an hour before responding to calls for help because... the hospital is full? That's like saying my train to the airport was late because the airport was full, it doesn't make much sense. How does one back up into the other?

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

#229

Post by [deleted] »

dekhn wrote: post #184
pas wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could you link to that pointing out? which parts don't stack up? the 12+ hour wait times, the hospital occupancy, the discharge rate, the aging population and the slashed spending are all seem to be hard numbers (dare I say facts?) ... what doesn't add up?

If you can wait 12 hours, you didn't have an emergency.

[deleted]

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

#230

Post by MichaelCollins »

imtringued wrote: post #216
WalterBright wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game in socialism is also making a lot of money.

The Soviet Union seems to have failed that game by collapsing through external debt.

The Soviet Union accrued massive debt due to internal production inefficiencies caused by corruption and mismanagement. Russia has extraordinary natural resources, by all rights they should be one of the most wealthy countries on earth.
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