Ukip general secretary calls for NHS to be privatised and compares it to Nazi Germany

[The Don]

Ukip general secretary calls for NHS to be privatised and compares it to Nazi Germany

In a serious of astonishing remarks, Nigel Farage’s top aide Matthew Richardson condemned the NHS as “the biggest waste of money in the UK”

Nigel Farage’s right-hand man has branded the NHS “the biggest waste of money in the UK” and compared the health service to Nazi Germany.

In a series of astonishing remarks, Ukip general secretary Matthew ­Richardson condemned the NHS and called for it to be privatised.

His comments – made to an American audience and revealed by the Sunday Mirror – will be a huge embarrassment to leader Mr Farage, who is now facing calls to axe his Mr Richardson.

A City barrister hired by Ukip to keep “bad stuff” out of the media, bespectacled Mr Richardson, 34, explosively compared the NHS – cherished by millions as ­Britain’s greatest post-war achievement – to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Speaking at two events for right-wing activists in Washington, he launched a ferocious attack on the service, blaming it for much of the nation’s debts.

He said: “A number I couldn’t possibly imagine when I was younger is now the amount of money that is owed by my country... of course, at the heart of this, the Reichstag bunker of socialism, is the National Health Service.

“And that is why socialised health care is so dangerous – because it is a ratchet. Once it is in place it is very, very hard to get rid of.”

Sources -
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...representation
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ls-nhs-5037494

At least he's came out and said what Farage and the rest of the party are too afraid to admit, that UKIP wants to privatise the NHS.

Thoughts?

[-:Undertaker:-]

Well this fella actually made the comments whilst he was a Conservative, and yet strangely they went unreported. The high profile Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan has called time and time again for the NHS to be privatised along American lines, so this is hardly breaking news.

As Farage has said though, its stupid in this country that you can't have a debate on the NHS and look at different options like insurance based options that they have in France and the Netherlands and instead must agree with the bloated NHS as it is: where cancer patients are denied treatment despite paying tax all their lives, yet the NHS is shelling out billions to middle management, wasteful spending and PFI schemes which the last Labour government brought in. It's just a shame in my view that they're committing themselves in the 2015 manifesto to keeping the NHS pretty much as it is.

Interesting though that notable people like Labour peers who have called for NHS privatisation are never posted by you/reported on BBC.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-granted.html

'Pay £200 to see the doctor so you value the NHS': Labour peer Lord Winston claims patients should be charged for treatment to stop taking health service for granted

- It comes after calls for patients to pay a £10-a-month fee to use the NHS
- But Lord Winston said the actual value of a hospital was much greater
- He said figure should be much higher so patients can appreciate the cost

Labour's Lord Robert Winston

Patients should be charged £200 to see their GP so they 'learn to appreciate the NHS', fertility expert Robert Winston has said.

It comes after calls for patients to pay a £10-a-month fee to use health services, and also be charged £20 for every night they stay in hospital.

But Labour peer Lord Winston said the actual value of a hospital was much greater- and the charge would have to be much higher to make it more 'realistic' for those who do not appreciate the cost.

He told The Sun: 'The actual value of a hospital appointment is about £200.

'This is for the time of the consultant and the investigations or tests that might be done.

'So paying £10 or £20 is really not an effective way of dealing with that deficit.'

There is rising concern that the NHS is running out of money and will soon have to resort to charging patients or rationing common treatments.

Former Labour health minister, Lord Warner, last month warned the NHS was ‘unaffordable’, ‘out-of-date’ and unable to meet the needs of the population.

He said everyone should pay a £10-a-month fee to use the NHS, and he called for the levy to be paid before anyone could benefit from free treatment.

He said the controversial measures would prevent a financial crisis in the Health Service, which is struggling to meet the needs of the increasingly ageing, unhealthy population.

[The Don]

Well this fella actually made the comments whilst he was a Conservative, and yet strangely they went unreported. The high profile Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan has called time and time again for the NHS to be privatised along American lines, so this is hardly breaking news.

As Farage has said though, its stupid in this country that you can't have a debate on the NHS and look at different options like insurance based options that they have in France and the Netherlands and instead must agree with the bloated NHS as it is: where cancer patients are denied treatment despite paying tax all their lives, yet the NHS is shelling out billions to middle management, wasteful spending and PFI schemes which the last Labour government brought in. It's just a shame in my view that they're committing themselves in the 2015 manifesto to keeping the NHS pretty much as it is.

Wasn't the NHS voted the best health system in the world in 2014? There are going to be faults in any system but changing to an insurance based system is absurd. Everyone in the UK can receive health care and I wouldn't want to see a system imposed similar to the one in the US where people were having to sell their homes to afford cancer treatment. At least with a tax based system everyone is entitled to receive treatment.

[Chippiewill]

Wasn't the NHS voted the best health system in the world in 2014?

It wasn't voted. it was the result of a scientific study looking into issues like cost, treatment times etc. and the UK scored highest in something like 6/10 criteria and 1 overall out of something like 12 leading countries (Like US, France, Germany etc.)

[The Don]

It wasn't voted. it was the result of a scientific study looking into issues like cost, treatment times etc. and the UK scored highest in something like 6/10 criteria and 1 overall out of something like 12 leading countries (Like US, France, Germany etc.)

Yeah, found it

NHS comes top in healthcare survey

The NHS has been declared the best healthcare system by an international panel of experts who rated its care superior to countries which spend far more on health.

The same study also castigated healthcare provision in the US as the worst of the 11 countries it looked at. Despite putting the most money into health, America denies care to many patients in need because they do not have health insurance and is also the poorest at saving the lives of people who fall ill, it found.

The report has been produced by the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington-based foundation which is respected around the world for its analysis of the performance of different countries' health systems. It examined an array of evidence about performance in 11 countries, including detailed data from patients, doctors and the World Health Organisation.

"The United Kingdom ranks first overall, scoring highest on quality, access and efficiency," the fund's researchers conclude in their 30-page report. Their findings amount to a huge endorsement of the health service, especially as it spends the second-lowest amount on healthcare among the 11 – just £2,008 per head, less than half the £5,017 in the US. Only New Zealand, with £1,876, spent less.

In the Commonwealth Fund study the UK came first out of the 11 countries in eight of the 11 measures of care the authors looked at. It got top place on measures including providing effective care, safe care, co-ordinated care and patient-centred care. The fund also rated the NHS as the best for giving access to care and for efficient use of resources.

The only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive. On a composite "healthy lives" score, which includes deaths among infants and patients who would have survived had they received timely and effective healthcare, the UK came 10th. The authors say that the healthcare system cannot be solely blamed for this issue, which is strongly influenced by social and economic factors. Although the NHS came third overall for the timeliness of care, its "short waiting times" were praised. "There is a frequent misperception that trade-offs between universal coverage and timely access to specialised services are inevitable. However, the Netherlands, UK and Germany provide universal coverage with low out-of-pocket costs while maintaining quick access to speciality services,", the report added.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2.../17/nhs-health

[-:Undertaker:-]

Wasn't the NHS voted the best health system in the world in 2014?

You tell me, although I can't see where they're getting that from when there's fiascos like....

Allowing patients to die of thirst: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpo..._Dying_Patient

Allowing massive sums of money to be thrown away with PFI schemes: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...ncial-collapse

Keeping the body parts of dead children and not even telling parents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Hey_organs_scandal

The mass death of hundreds of people in just one hospital: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Hospital_scandal

Burning the body parts of dead children to power a hospital: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...s-9212863.html

I mean I could go on and on and on really. The fact is though that the NHS is way too overpraised and anybody who attacks it or even questions it is immediately put under the emotional arguments like "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the NHS!!" or "The nurses in the NHS are all lovely cos they were to me when I went!!!" despite the fact that if you have a serious illness and aren't treated by a western healthcare service the chances are, naturally, that you wouldn't be alive: keeping people alive via healthcare isn't exclusive to the NHS - nor are kind nurses and helpful staff.

- - - Updated - - -

Wasn't the NHS voted the best health system in the world in 2014? There are going to be faults in any system but changing to an insurance based system is absurd. Everyone in the UK can receive health care and I wouldn't want to see a system imposed similar to the one in the US where people were having to sell their homes to afford cancer treatment. At least with a tax based system everyone is entitled to receive treatment.

People in the UK also have sell their homes for cancer treatments as well as do the fundraising themselves: https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&...r+treatment+uk It isn't unique to the American healthcare system.

The reality is that no healthcare system is perfect and under the NHS, even though I am not a fan of the American system either, it isn't all roses and there's still gross waste, gross scandals of poor care and then there's cases of where treatment is denied via death panels because of the cost.

And the situation in America is also overblown and a media myth.

[The Don]

You tell me, although I can't see where they're getting that from when there's fiascos like....

Allowing patients to die of thirst: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpo..._Dying_Patient

Allowing massive sums of money to be thrown away with PFI schemes: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...ncial-collapse

Keeping the body parts of dead children and not even telling parents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Hey_organs_scandal

The mass death of hundreds of people in just one hospital: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Hospital_scandal

Burning the body parts of dead children to power a hospital: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...s-9212863.html

I mean I could go on and on and on really. The fact is though that the NHS is way too overpraised and anybody who attacks it or even questions it is immediately put under the emotional arguments like "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the NHS!!" or "The nurses in the NHS are all lovely cos they were to me when I went!!!" despite the fact that if you have a serious illness and aren't treated by a western healthcare service the chances are, naturally, that you wouldn't be alive: keeping people alive via healthcare isn't exclusive to the NHS - nor are kind nurses and helpful staff.

- - - Updated - - -



People in the UK also have sell their homes for cancer treatments as well as do the fundraising themselves: https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&...r+treatment+uk It isn't unique to the American healthcare system.

The reality is that no healthcare system is perfect and under the NHS, even though I am not a fan of the American system either, it isn't all roses and there's still gross waste, gross scandals of poor care and then there's cases of where treatment is denied via death panels because of the cost.

Are you seriously suggesting there's a comparable amount of people to the US in the UK not receiving health care because they simply can't afford it?

[-:Undertaker:-]

Are you seriously suggesting there's a comparable amount of people to the US in the UK not receiving health care because they simply can't afford it?

It depends on what you mean by insured, as with the Dr Thomas Sowell clip above. For example, in America if you are insured then it's likely most of them care packages will include monthly checkups, scans for X, Y and X and dental treatments quite often: the extent and quality of which depends on your age, what medical package you have insured yourself under and so on. If you are not insured then you are still entitled to medical treatment, ie if you fall over with a heart attack in the states you will be picked up by an ambulance and then treated. In Britain, we're not entitled to them care packages - of which many exist - under the NHS and very many of us only go to the Doctor or the hospital when we have a problem as opposed for frequent healthcare checkups: unless we have underlying medical problems. In addition, we also partially pay for our dental care with the rest coming from general taxation - meaning you're still paying for it anyway just as people in the US who recieve 'free' medical care are still paying for it out of taxation too.

So it's really a case of apples and oranges as well as who are you talking about (demographics).

[The Don]

It depends on what you mean by insured, as with the Dr Thomas Sowell clip above. For example, in America if you are insured then it's likely most of them care packages will include monthly checkups, scans for X, Y and X and dental treatments quite often: the extent and quality of which depends on your age, what medical package you have insured yourself under and so on. If you are not insured then you are still entitled to medical treatment, ie if you fall over with a heart attack in the states you will be picked up by an ambulance and then treated. In Britain, we're not entitled to them care packages - of which many exist - under the NHS and very many of us only go to the Doctor or the hospital when we have a problem as opposed for frequent healthcare checkups: unless we have underlying medical problems. In addition, we also partially pay for our dental care with the rest coming from general taxation - meaning you're still paying for it anyway just as people in the US who recieve 'free' medical care are still paying for it out of taxation too.

So it's really a case of apples and oranges as well as who are you talking about (demographics).

That's not what I asked. There are millions of bankruptcies due to medical treatment every year in the US. I know which system I would rather have.

Bankruptcies resulting from unpaid medical bills will affect nearly 2 million people this year—making health care the No. 1 cause of such filings, and outpacing bankruptcies due to credit-card bills or unpaid mortgages, according to new data. And even having health insurance doesn't buffer consumers against financial hardship.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148
http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/healt...al-bankruptcy/

[Chippiewill]

The US system is absolutely a joke in terms of cost performance. They pay more in tax on healthcare per capita than we do and still have to pay ridiculous amounts in health insurance.