Nhs

[Ankh Morpork]

I wouldn't mind the NHS so much if it weren't for the fact it doesn't include most dental care.

I so wish it was cheaper with dental care...being unemployed as I am, I cant even afford ONE visit to the dentist or it will totally ruin my economy and should I need to get my teeth fixed I can assure you it would take more than just one visit

/Ankh

[Heta]

After knocking out most of my teeth 3 times I have been to the dentist enough for a couple of lifetimes already

[Sharkith]

The lib dems as a whole, ive no idea. David Laws suggested it at the party conferance.. and he said that maybe insurance models should replace the NHS.

But yes I agree with disbanding the NHS. Atm it's taken advantage of, much like the rest of the welfare state we live in. People are uninspired to work their way to success when they can happily live along off money provied by the hard working.

rofl

[Sharkith]

genius. attacking the mod.

i dont have a strong opinion one way or the other.
i agree that there are people that take the **** out of the nhs, and those that frankly dont deserve the help. drug addicts, for example, imo should be locked in a room cold turkey instead of getting methadone all the time for free just because they were stupid enough to start taking heroin. and they certainly don't deserve the needle exchange programs that are being run.
but i dont think that people that do work hard and are effectively trapped by being poor should be forced to pay for health insurance that they probably couldnt afford.

We could make drugs like heroin industrially for a fraction of what it currently costs most drugs users. We could do it safely and either through the NHS or in the open market. We could do all of this. Would society collapse? I doubt it.

Would we have more drug users? Probably.

Would we have more addicts? Probably.

Would addiction be such a big social problem? Not likely since the drug would be available, it would be clean and therefore not of variable quality which is why most people end up ODing anyway. Most of all they could have the drug they wish to have and they could have it without associating with criminals who exploit their position.

[Mojo]

The NHS would be better if they didn't waste so much money, there seems to be no level of accountability when it comes to spending tax payers money. If the private sector acted like the NHS, people would be getting fired left and right.

Departments seem to act like tight arses all year just incase their budgets run dry, then when they don't they panic to spend money on crap they don't need so they don't get penalised the following year.

To much wasted money and to many people with fat wallets who do fuck all for it.

[Sharkith]

you have to make a conscious decision to get hooked on drugs,

this my friend is a contradiction.

Equally problematic for you would be the fact that most people who take drugs (in fact around 85% of them) do so without any problems. On average most people grow out of drugs at around the age of 35 - it is the single biggest way out of drug use and was rather patronisingly named by the medical researchers as 'maturing out'.

[Sharkith]

The NHS would be better if they didn't waste so much money, there seems to be no level of accountability when it comes to spending tax payers money. If the private sector acted like the NHS, people would be getting fired left and right.

Departments seem to act like tight arses all year just incase their budgets run dry, then when they don't they panic to spend money on crap they don't need so they don't get penalised the following year.

To much wasted money and to many people with fat wallets who do fuck all for it.

so how would you improve it? It all well and good scolding about it but what alternative is there. They tried the internal market and now we have the postcode lottery....

[Mojo]

so how would you improve it? It all well and good scolding about it but what alternative is there. They tried the internal market and now we have the postcode lottery....

I can't offer any solution else I would have, maybe rewarding people for managing their budgets well rather than penalise them.. Im not sure how that would be done tho, it's not really my area.

[Sharkith]

Personally I think it should be done with *long term* insurance policies. This works well expecially well for children as they are much less likely to die than adults. As you grow older your chances of dying per year increase exponentially. This excludes getting from 0 to 5 (and esp 0 to 1) as that is highish risk as babies with serious fundamental heath problems die during this period (sad but true).

the US operates an insurance system - the system has the widest inequalities and disparities of all the OECD countires. It is frankly disgusting just how poorly they treat the poor. Not only this but take their dental care for example around 60% of the population can no longer afford proper cover. The system is technologically expensive and uncontrolled and no no-one can afford it.

Would I like this kind of society - one of the richest in the world and yet they basically allow the poor to die. NHS is imperfect but please do not insult it by comparing it to an insurance sytem like that in the US.

[Sharkith]

I can't offer any solution else I would have, maybe rewarding people for managing their budgets well rather than penalise them.. Im not sure how that would be done tho, it's not really my area.

Yes it is not easy. The internal market was designed to do this - but we have a very patchy system now with some services simply no longer existing. The more you mix the market with the NHS the more these regional disparities will emerge. No-one likes waste of course but if having no service at all because someone can't manage a budget....