BBC Should Lead Debate On Health Care

nhs-manBBC Should Lead Debate On Health Care; Just How Do They Do It Abroad?

“dead-end of top-down health care, doled out to us pleading serfs by modern day Lords of the Manor”

“if anyone hints at not believing that the biggest bureaucracy in Europe is an example to the world, a lynch mob seems to form in an instant”

The NHS is a powerful symbol of all that is wrong with Britain.

The BBC should lead a national debate on health care. It should examine the insurance based systems of France and Germany, and the market free-for-all that is American health care. Maybe the Japanese have an effective system.

One thing it shouldn’t do; don’t assume that the British NHS is a template for anyone seeking to deliver world-class health care. What will it take to show our fellow citizens that this method of delivering health is, was, and always will be, a dead-end of top-down health care, doled out to us pleading serfs by modern day Lords of the Manor. It is a typical Socialist concoction. Always spooned out with cries about how much they care, when in fact it is a device to exert power and control over us citizens.

I’ve heard endless news reports on the BBC and NewsNight discussions about the NHS in the light of the Mid-Staffs debacle, and nowhere have I heard anything sensible being said about the future. I’ve heard Radio 5 Live presenter Nicky Campbell, and a phone-in participant today saying the NHS is the envy of the world. What kind of parallel universe are these people living in?

The NHS is a powerful symbol of all that is wrong with Britain. It represents the triumph of politics over reality. It shows that if you repeat a big lie often enough, the people will eventually come to believe it. If you look at any measure of world class health care, Britain is low down in the league and falling. Britons have been convinced by politicians and their apologists that the National Health Service, an incompetent and outdated way of delivering health care, is world class. They won’t be shaken out of their complacency on this. If you tune into one of the big weekly political participation shows like Question Time on BBC TV or Any Questions on BBC Radio 4, if any one hints at not believing that the biggest bureaucracy in Europe is an example to the world, a lynch mob seems to form in an instant. Evidence, which mounts daily, that the NHS is corrupt and incompetent and provides an increasingly useless and often callous service is ignored, although the media is full of stories underlining this fact.

The idea that the state can provide some kind of “free” health care is a lie, which politicians of the left push, with the complicity of the cowardly Conservative party. Look at health care in France and Germany, where standards are hugely higher, and individuals take responsibility for their bills through insurance. This imposes a discipline on the system, and outcomes are unarguably better. Other countries may have good ideas too.

The BBC Radio and TV should organise an in-depth programme to examine how health care is delivered around the world so that we can all see what is possible, and what is not, and how our centrally controlled system works compared with the best elsewhere. It is likely that if my fellow citizens are presented with the facts, the scales will be removed from their eyes and the truth will be revealed. Surely, a top-down-system which leads to Mid-Staffs tragedies, or morally corrupt organizations like the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (remember, it refused to provide medication for one patient that would stave off blindness until one eye had failed. Then it would have been urgent enough for the state to help) lording it over us, should finally be laid to rest.

Are you up to the job, BBC?

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