If you couldn’t get a treatment on the NHS, either because if waiting lists or nowhere remotely close to you specialising in it, you’d go private. So if you don’t “believe” that private healthcare benefits the NHS waiting lists then you can at least accept that private healthcare provides the option of actual healthcare to the individual in many cases. Let alone that many NHS consultants do their NHS work as a vocation and then do private work on the side so that they can make money. The guy who do my vasectomy said the same in those exact words.
Waiting lists to even get into an NHS dentist in many areas are nuts. Again, the private sector exists for that shortfall. By being the only country in Europe to add VAT on these things we wouldn’t be banning them @jimo, we would be making them more elite. Or unfair. Whichever way you want to term it.
I’m willing to bet Starmer doesn’t go after healthcare because he knows it’s a shit idea
Haha fucking hell, so his £100K plus NHS job is a selfless act of charity, lol.
We’re in direct competition with private providers for staff who we have effectively trained, providers who have the luxury of just choosing which patients they would like to treat while we have to provide all the annoyingly unprofitable stuff like an emergency department. People going private is just exacerbating the whole thing, basically privatising the NHS.
Now imagine that education and the NHS hadn’t been under funded for the last 14 years. We’d be having a different conversation. The tories have always prioritised private health care and education.
It’s not because one benefits the other… it’s the tories underfunding public resources while giving to private ones, 14 years of it.
has anyone mentioned that?
I think everyone on here is pretty close in saying that people just need to pay their way and the rich need to give up some of their earnings that they don’t actually work for. Yes it’s harsh that they have to pay a big percentage on their actual current wage BUT most people of certain earnings are at a place where they just accumulate money by other means. This is money they are not earning through work, their high paid jobs have allowed them to use their money to gain more money in other ways. This money is not taxed and it’s why Rishi is getting richer by the day and only paid tax on his MP wage. These people are making US pay for our services and not putting back in themselves, all private companies are keeping the money and making themselves richer and again not putting back in to the service, we are continually paying for the problems and improvements, schools, NHS, energy, water, Post office, everything. I know Starmer is a bell and in truth someone needs to have the balls to just say enough is enough and have the power to tell people that there are new rules coming but in reality they’d probably have to live in a secret bunker afterwards because these people with money, don’t want it to change. Starmer hasn’t got the power to stand up against these people right now, they have the power and we’re too timid to take any steps to gain any control. So while it’s a shit sandwich at least it’s got bread and not just more shit.
Sorry but I don’t think either main party has exactly been great on either education or healthcare for decades. Blair’s NHS reform went a long way to pushing privatisation of some NHS services for example. Which you guys are so against.
Hence the whole “cross party coalition running essential services” ideas. These services are too important to be part of political point scoring. Reform shouldn’t be part of a five year plan to get elected and then dropped when it either doesn’t work or isn’t feasible
Sorry but the tories have had 14 years to sort this all out. So all this Blair did this or that doesn’t wash. If he had been five years ago, yes. Not 14 fucking years ago! They have punished one tier of society while rewarding another with tax/vat/ect cuts, so boo fucking hoo if they are going to feel the pinch like everyone else now.
i’m not disagreeing in the slightest. i didn’t say the Tories have done ANYTHING well because they have been an absolute shitshow. austerity has brought the country to it’s knees and as far as i can tell there is literally not a single thing they have improved.
however, the idea that they alone are responsible for everything is wrong.
as i have pointed out multiple times, the idea that it is the rich who are going to suffer from VAT tax on private schools or who would suffer from VAT tax on healthcare is also wrong. they literally wouldn’t even notice.
you think a surgeon who spent decades training and is up to his elbows in guts all day should earn 100k? no wonder we have a problem keeping medical specialists in this country. i’m sure all those junior doctors who are striking over pay and conditions are only doing it out of greed.
the NHS does not and cannot offer all treatments to all people in every part of the country. some private clinics offer specialities that it just isn’t reasonable to expect the NHS to offer. that isn’t even a fault of underfunding.
if you turned around tomorrow and said that those clinics had to have VAT then once again you wouldn’t be hurting the rich. you’d just make it shittier for everyone. but it’d be fair right? no.
going back again to the NHS dentistry. the only way people round here can see a dentist is going private. slap VAT onto that and again it’s not fairer. it’s just making it more shit. is VAT going to fix NHS dentistry? no. otherwise you can bet Starmer would be aiming for that too in his magical socialist paradise
oh man yeah i agree with that. if you could make the super rich actually pay their fair share then we could really go some way to fixing parts of our infrastructure and services that badly need it. you could argue the same for proper corporation tax that’s actually enforced.
the numerous problems with that include -
actually getting the rich to pay what they owe instead of using loopholes (legal or otherwise)
having politicians who would then use that money to actually fix things. i don’t think Starmer is any way near smart enough to fix the problems we have. not quickly and not with what he has said so far
for the 10th time. this isn’t going to effect the lives of the rich at all. this is going to effect the lives of the middle who pay for services to get something they can’t get from the state.
i’m really stoked that no one on here has started insulting me despite disagreeing with my opinions. makes me really happy to be on here. it’s rare you can discuss stuff with people without toys being thrown out of the pram
Baby steps are needed and radical ideas that make people change the way they think and what they should have and deserve.
All large public services should only be run like a business for efficiency, none should be run as a business for profit for anyone. All people putting effort in for the running and providing of services should be paid well for that job but everything else needs putting back in. No profit just breaking even because it’s not a business it’s a service that is needed for the running of the country, essential services to give back to the people paying for it. It’s bloody simple really. Age old greed will always be the cause and I only see it getting worse because we’re taught to aspire to it as well.
oooh you’re going far with that one. you could argue that all modern society since the industrial revolution is based on the principles of aspiration (and i guess greed). a burgeoning middle class has more or less defined the 20th and 21st centuries.
socialism has never worked because of human beings being selfish and greedy. it’s just what we are.
i’m curious as to how some of our forumers in mainland Europe view healthcare and education? why does healthcare fail so badly here yet seem to work better there? or is that just a “grass is greener” thing?
Yeah agree, it’s not a dream that could actually be realised so we will have to deal with it. However, if we eject the tories no matter what then new ideas could start to come forward from more realistic people. Starmer isn’t realistic but Rayner is so we need people like that to get their feet under the table at least for now and people that relate to the shop floor more can start to put in ideas that benefit us all. Trouble is there is a gravy train running and people are easily swayed. This is the main thing that needs addressing. How do we force these issues out?
i actually really like Rayner. i think she’d be a much better PM than Starmer if we’re gonna go left wing. maybe one for the future.
i’m genuinely going to go door knocking for the Lib Dems. i said in this thread a few weeks ago that if any party pledged to reverse brexit (or at least move closer to the EU) then I would back them and i stand by that for sure
I do agree the tax burden nearly always lands with the middle class not the super rich. But I still back higher taxes if it can begin to bridge some of the wealth divide which is growing. And I hope something like a capital gains tax could happen in the future under Labour. (not holding my breath mind)
Plus benefits and all the extra pay they get for doing extra shifts etc. I don’t think it’s some outrageous pittance, no. How much should nurses get in your estimation?
