Farage & party funding

Mike Greene (on tv as The Secret Millionaire) represents the Brexit Party in the Peterborough by election a week on Thursday.

I have a feeling he’ll win it.

Scrapping HS2 is fine but investment is sorely needed in the rail network up north for example cross pennine. I’m sure NF knows that what with being a man of the people and all that.

I think so too maryeliza. He taps into what a great many of the population think. Which is why I think his party, with their policies set out (not a manifesto - he says people don’t believe in those any more!) will do very well in a GE.

Not sure about understanding what ordinary people want. He doesn't believe in the NHS, feels we should move to an insurance based way. Of course he can afford high premiums if he has any existing conditions, but can we all? Think I'll be up the creek without a paddle in sight!

No, janipat I think he’s been quoted as saying the NHS needs looking at.

The charge against Farage made by his critics is that he wants to privatise the NHS. This may be his intention or not. But if it is, a true far-right fascist would surely seek to do the opposite: centralise the health service in order to monitor what kind of person is – and is not receiving – care, ensuring that foreigners don’t get access.

Urmstongran I saw a video of him saying that he favoured an insurance based scheme. He said he felt he'd think he was getting better value for his money rather than handing it over to government to spend it. I think that's the start of a slippery slope and then you're like the USA where if you don't have insurance you can forget cancer treatment.

Well that sounds awful.

But covert privatisation of the NHS has been going on for years. I worked in a hospital as a medical secretary for 35y and there used to be cleaners - then outsourced to a private company - Sodexo. The histology samples were sent from Manchester to a private company in the Midlands for analysis and reporting. Just 2 examples. Private companies are nipping away at the NHS.

It needs root and branch reform. It cannot decide whether it is running a business (Trusts compete with one another for funding as the money follows the patient) or whether it is providing a service.

Sad, but true.

Perhaps NF is just bold enough to face the facts. I don’t know. But something needs doing - some Trusts are £millions in the red and there is huge wastage and inefficiency that needs addressing.

The NHS is a snake whose outgrown skin has split to reveal the bleeding flesh underneath.
It needs emergency treatment to staunch the flow.

I think France has health service where residents have to take out an insurance to co-pay for their treatment. I also think the French Health Service is good.

It cannot decide whether it is running a business (Trusts compete with one another for funding as the money follows the patient) or whether it is providing a service.

It's not that the HS cannot decide, it's that it's been put into this position by tory governments which are convinced that a service can be run as a business and that competition leads to efficiencies (and breaks it into nice convenient units for privatisation). The NHS is entirely at the mercy of government ideology.

some Trusts are £millions in the red and there is huge wastage and inefficiency that needs addressing.

Has it completely passed you by, Ug that the NHS has been starved of funding for nearly a decade now?
It was never intended to be a money maker. The state is not in the business of making profits. It was conceived as a public welfare service. The state would be perfectly able to fund it properly if the political will was there, but it isn't.

As to 'waste', I have no idea. I suspect that this is a story put about to support privatisation. I would be really surprised if any huge organisation manages to run without waste and inefficiencies, but realism doesn't suit the narrative, does it?

I'll reiterate that the money doesn't disappear into a big black hole. It all gets spent and much of it comes back to the state by way of taxation.

In France the health service is run completely differently. Doctors, nurses etc etc are independent businesses. So, if you go to your doctor and you need an x-ray he will give you an ordnance (prescription) and you chose which lab you go to. For a blood test you go to your local nurse who may well ask which lab you want to perform the tests. You have a carte vitale which proves that you are in the French health system and you have top up insurance to cover the difference between the rates for services agreed with the government and the rate at which you are charged. Generally the system works well but money changes hands and it has to be reclaimed.

In France the proportion of GDP spent on health care is greater than in the UK

France, Germany and Italy all spend more on health services and all have excellent hospitals. But I don't expect Farage will want to copy anything European, he’s going for the US model. I wonder if he’ll make his views on gun control and smoking part of his policy now?

Stop getting your digs in crystaltipps!

I wonder why our government doesn’t go back to the drawing board and take into consideration ‘best practice’ from around the world? It would be better cross party so any changes wouldn’t just get chucked out by the ‘next lot’!

Any Minister for Health only seems to last a few months - it’s like having a ride on a bluddy carousel! Jeremy Hint, now Matt Hancock in no time at all. They must surely just be getting a handle on it when it’s time to move on.

We probably need a degree of higher taxation. If only we could ‘ring fence’ it for our beloved NHS people would be happier paying it. I think.

The French system sounds good and fair Joelsnan

I’m enjoying this discussion better than the thread title. Perhaps GNHQ can rename it Views about the NHS?

Urm JH was Health Secretary for 6 years - did you honestly not know that and all the problems he was involved with ( and caused) during that 6 years?

And crystal completely agree with you re NF - funny how your comment was perceived as a dig rather than based on comments he has actually made about moving to that type of system.

? Gun control

Not relevant here!

We probably need a degree of higher taxation

The tories depend on economic illiteracy like yours to enable them to carry out their economic ruin of the NHS without any challenge, Ug

Taxation does not fund spending. Our state is a money issuer, not earner.

The stuff about having to 'live within our means' is rubbish; just about any economist will tell you that.

We have a 'sovereign' currency (i.e we have complete control over it) and can issue as much of it as we like because it isn't backed by anything, we went off the gold standard 40+ years ago.

I would love a discussion about economics and how money 'works' but no-one ever seems interested, despite the fact economics is fundamental to a society...

Ah you’re right of course maryeliza
We did indeed have Hunt for 6 long (austerity driven) years.

This from his wiki page:
“In July 2015, Hunt became the subject of the first petition on a new UK Government website to reach the threshold of 100,000 signatures required for a petition to be considered for debate in Parliament. The petition called for a debate on a vote of "No Confidence" in Hunt as Health Secretary”

I bow to your superior knowledge of fiscal policy MaizieD and realise because of your insight, I am indeed ‘dim’.

Seriously, I’d like it explained in layman’s terms. It’s good to be taught something.

If you’d start on a thread on it I’d follow with interest.
?

I'll have a go, Ug

Thank you MaizieD

I’ll listen and learn (and ask questions if you don’t mind). Let’s take it in small bites.

I’m not an ‘A’ student!
?

It has been said on here that Brexit is not a party but on another thread it is stated that they are (was it Urmston). Please would someone clarify?

If outsourcing cleaning, histology, hearing tests etc can be done to the same standard at a lower cost I can see that it would release money to be spent on more complex things. It would of course need to also cover the cost of monitoring the outsourced areas. Not sure the public sector is very good at awarding contracts and monitoring them though. So many seem to go wrong for very basic reasons. Not a good idea to award a contract based on price alone and they should have KPI clauses and remedies for failure of the KPIs.

Nonnie it’s legally a party registered with the Electoral Commission ( otherwise it couldn’t have had candidates in the EU elections or the Peterborough one). However in any real meaning of the word ‘party’ its a joke - no members, no policies apart from one, a Supreme Great Leader accountable to no one.