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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

#391

Post by 6figurelenins »

pessimizer wrote: post #256
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.

> I know this is difficult to understand how it works Are we going to pretend that free market capitalism and its magical benefits haven't been pounded into all of our heads from every angle from the moment we were being taught anything about how the world works? It's not difficult to understand, it's difficult to see in a world where companies commit crimes and collapse in mountains of debt, but no one goes to jail.…

Are you really going to pretend -- to this audience -- you haven't enjoyed the (yes) magical benefits of profit-seeking innovation?

Progressivism conquered America a century ago. Antitrust law. Central bank. Income tax. Universal suffrage. Old age pensions. Public education, research grants. National parks. Interstate highways. Welfare, public housing. Equal opportunity employment. Disaster relief. Socialized medicine for the poor and elderly. Workplace safety. Automobile safety and emissions standards. Space shuttle.

Recently, a flirtation with Universal Basic Income.

You're concerned about what? Free Prime delivery?

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

#392

Post by dogcomplex »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #305
raydev wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you're giving a lot more benefit of the doubt to the Liberals (and US Democrats) than you should. You're assuming they have wildly different aims. But I don't think history has borne that out. If you want to know why they're so tepid and inept in their opposition to the right and far right, it's because there's not enough of a substantial difference in fundamental direction and policy. (And liberals are on th…

Excellent summary. Might be worth noting that even if a party arose that wanted to make significant economic changes they'd be dealing with US and international finance interests that would make that very difficult, and we are probably stuck in the same political rut that US citizens find themselves: economic and material change is not really on the table for any party. You just get to pick your flavor of social stance and the general economic sector the little money that does come gets directed to (urban/real-estate or rural/oil). We're baked into the international religion of the holy free market, same as everyone else.

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

#394

Post by timellis-smith »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #199

My 80 year old grandfather was due for a knee operation and it was delayed twice. On the day after the second time it was delayed, his knee collapsed and he smacked his head on the concrete floor. His speech was slurred, his vision was affected, and he was in extreme pain. Bearing in mind in his younger years he's had eyes slashed open and fingers cut off, so he has a high pain threshold. The ambulance took six hours…

>The NHS is a tragedy and I almost wish they'd just hurry up and privatise it so I don't have to pay with it with my taxes anymore, which means the Tories achieved their goal.

I hear this bandied about a lot, but do you have any evidence to support this claim.

"In 2006/2007, 2.8% of NHS spending went to private providers, rising to 4.4% in New Labour’s last full year in government and 4.9% in the first year of the Coalition. About 7.6% of NHS revenue spending in 2015/16 went on purchasing care from private providers.12 In the three years from then to the Covid-19 pandemic, private spending flatlined, with the combined non-NHS spend of Commissioners and Trusts being under 8%.13 The Chief Executive of the NHS predicted in 2015 that the proportion of NHS work going to the private sector would be unlikely to increase beyond ‘the margins’.14 He has been proved right." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01410768211049...

From what I've read Labour was also responsible for the privitisation of healthcare.

Not that I'm personally opposed to some privitisation in a sensible manner, but the privitisation debate just seems to be some form of political attack with little grounding in reality.

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

#395

Post by jmfldn »

gruez wrote: post #354
amrocha wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you look at horrible evil companies literally destroying the environment around us just because it makes them more money and say there's no alternative??? If you need a regulator to make sure companies don't literally dump sewage all over the country then it's pretty clear that this is a failed system with bad incentives. What pressures would a nationalized system have? How about the fact that normal people d…

>What pressures would a nationalized system have? How about the fact that normal people don't want to ruin the environment around them? You don't need additional pressure to make sure that doesn't happen. Elsewhere in this thread people are literally talking about nationalized healthcare systems where people are waiting hours for ambulances, or dying in hospital waiting rooms. I think the statement of "normal people…

The NHS is collapsing due to politicised defunding. The NHS is a sacred cow in the UK so the right can't overtly criticise it, instead it's death by a thousand cuts (pun intended).

Remember Noam Chomsky's quote on this subject? "Privatisation technique: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital". The latter part is already happening.

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

#396

Post by jmfldn »

lambdadmitry wrote: post #334
jmfldn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rece…

I really don't like this kind of knee-jerk "privatisation bad, fatcat CEOs bad" reaction sadly prevalent in the UK. Let's talk about the underlying argument, shall we? Firstly, you're talking about a failure of a regulator to regulate an industry and prosecute alleged perpetrators, and the implied solution is to… nationalise the industry, somehow assuming the nationalised entity will be managed better by the very sam…

I work for a private energy company so you don't have to tell me it's complicated when it comes to the private vs public ownership debate. There is a complex spectrum between the extremes. There are very obviously the wrong incentives in the water setup and a failed market. Tbh, I'm open minded about nationalisation in some areas of some sectors with what I'm seeing right now. It's undeniable when you look at the history.

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

#397

Post by 6figurelenins »

WalterBright wrote: post #374
fragmede wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, socialism isn't communism, and money still exists under socialism, so if the service center isn't doing their job, then, as you capitalists like to say, money talks. Capitalism, like democracy, is the worst form of government, except for all the others. To believe that the US brand of capitalism can do no wrong is to be as deluded as the communists were. If the free market were perfectly efficient, there would…

Um, the free market requires a government to enforce peoples' rights and to enforce contracts. > They're a total ripoff and a tourist trap and that's with capitalism's vaunted free market backing the enterprise. If you think they're a ripoff, don't patronize them. Nobody is making you.

> the free market requires a government to enforce peoples' rights and to enforce contracts

That seemed obvious to most observers, up to the Cold War.

It can't account for international trade, which functions on mutual self-interest.

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

#398

Post by nitwit005 »

rajup wrote: post #316
asdff wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone in the U.S., don't expect the timeliness to improve any with private healthcare.

Why do you say that, do you have any evidence to back it up? Not saying the US healthcare system is anything to write home about, but it always seemed to me that as long as your pockets are deep enough you should be able to get healthcare when you need it in the US.

It's not too difficult to find comparisons of countries wait times: https://www.oecd.org/health/waiting-times-for-health-service...

There are some private practices that will let you pay a premium for quick appointments, but if you need a hospital, you're probably going to experience some wait.

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

#399

Post by n4r9 »

bambataa wrote: post #238
buscoquadnary wrote: post #198

I don't think it is coincidental that there is also now a large push in England for State sanctioned suicide. Especially after reading how administrators in Canada are treating it.

What are you talking about?

Not sure what OP is referring to exactly either, but there has been a bit of talk about euthanasia in the press following the case of a man who killed his wife who was dying of cancer (and then attempted unsuccessfully to kill himself): https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/22/law-euthanas...

My impression is the attitude towards euthanasia is becoming more favourable. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes an Labour election promise over the next decade (the Lib Dems already support it I believe).

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

#400

Post by pjc50 »

tailspin2019 wrote: post #223
simonswords82 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, extensive bashing has achieved the bare minimum, the resignation of Johnson - but, characteristically, in a half-assed way while a lengthy leadership contest happens and the leadership vacuum remains. We're now moving on to strikes, and if the 70s speedrun continues we're likely to see either energy rationing or a mass non-payment of bills, presumably followed by actual riots, until a general election is finally called.
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