National Insurance and the NHS

mollymoo said:
A good thing seeing as most people see the doctor for stupid reasons. "Doctor I keep sneezing" "Yeah you have a cold take Lemsip"
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So you wouldn't care if a few people died because they "thought twice" just so long as it removed a few paranoid people from the waiting queue?

I'd be willing to bet there are far more people (mostly men) who put off going to the doctors when they should than there are hypochondriacs, put a 'nominal fee' in there and you give them yet another reason to put off going to the doctors.

If there are too many people going to the doctors when the needn't to then blame the media, blame a lack of education and mixed messages sent from the government, blame NHS direct for not advertising enough but don't blame the people who take the sensible option and play it safe.
 
gobbo said:
Ok, so say £10, what if you can't afford that? Lets lose the Daily Xenophobe idea for a brief moment and not assume that all those who can't afford this are scumbags.....
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Crikey where did that come from? Are you telling me that if for example your daughter is ill and you are worried (from a slightly educated point of view, .... which maybe where the problem is here), that you wouldn't be willing to give up twenty fags and 2 litres of white lightning to ensure her safety?
 
estebanrey said:
So you wouldn't care if a few people died because they "thought twice" just so long as it removed a few paranoid people from the waiting queue?

I'd be willing to bet there are far more people (mostly men) who put off going to the doctors when they should than there are hypochondriacs, put a 'nominal fee' in there and you give them yet another reason to put off going to the doctors.

If there are too many people going to the doctors when the needn't to then blame the media, blame a lack of education and mixed messages sent from the government, blame NHS direct for not advertising enough but don't blame the people who take the sensible option and play it safe.
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Any doctors surgery you go in will tell you not to turn up with certain symptoms, yet they still do. Maybe they think there is a cure for the common cold all of a sudden. Don't get me wrong I'm not talking about avoiding the doctor with a big lump on your testicles here.
 
mollymoo said:
Crikey where did that come from? Are you telling me that if for example your daughter is ill and you are worried (from a slightly educated point of view, .... which maybe where the problem is here), that you wouldn't be willing to give up twenty fags and 2 litres of white lightning to ensure her safety?
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I don't smoke, don't drink cider and don't have any kids so not sure where this is aimed at? Am I to assume you subscribe to the idea that the only people who should get medical care are those who can afford it, regardless of how they ended up in what ever unfortunate situation they find themselves in?
 
gobbo said:
I don't smoke, don't drink cider and don't have any kids so not sure where this is aimed at? Am I to assume you subscribe to the idea that the only people who should get medical care are those who can afford it?
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Errrm see my previous post. Paying a nominal fee has nothing to do with affording it as you eloquently put it, more to do with accepting responsibility for your actions.
 
mollymoo said:
Errrm see my previous post. Paying a nominal fee has nothing to do with affording it as you eloquently put it, more to do with accepting responsibility for your (or other peoples) actions.
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Hang on. You want to charge people £10 to go to the doctors. How does paying something have nothing to do with affording something? Are we all to keep £10 in a little pot to make sure we can always pay for the doctors? Also am I to accept responsibility for other peoples actions now?
 
mollymoo said:
Errrm see my previous post. Paying a nominal fee has nothing to do with affording it as you eloquently put it, more to do with accepting responsibility for your actions.
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You make it sound as if all illness is preventable and simply down your life choices. Biology doesn't work that way.
 
estebanrey said:
You make it sound as if all illness is preventable and simply down your life choices. Biology doesn't work that way.
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According to him they are, it's all down to people smoking 20 a day and drinking white lightning don't you know. Last I heard no decent, upstanding citizens used the NHS, it was all freeloading scumbags.
 
Speaking as someone who can't afford to pay for private healthcare and has had to rely on the NHS a couple of times in the last few years, I have to say that I am extremely grateful for the service we have and would hate to think that we could regress to the US system.

The NHS came about after seeing what was happening to the poor who couldn't afford treatment, people dying for no need when a simple cure was available.

Is the current system bloated, possibly. But we already have people who won't go to a dentist because of the check-up fee, you don't want people to be put off going to a doctor if they think something is wrong as it could be the end of them.

I would like to see a fining system brought in for wasting time, possibly including self-inflicted harm in the sense of alcohol fuelled behaviour (not self harm in general).
 
estebanrey said:
You make it sound as if all illness is preventable and simply down your life choices. Biology doesn't work that way.
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Oh don't get me wrong here, I'm willing to put my money into a pot to pay for naturally occurring health problems. I smoke, I pay for the future problems it may cause and the burden on the NHS. I am a tad miffed with paying for someone who decided to end their life because it hasn't been the way they thought it would be or put their arm through a window because they were drunk, there is a difference,... a big one
 
C.R.A.Z.Y said:
We should be studying and adopting the health-care system that they have in France as it's arguably the best in the world.
America don't even enter the top 30 health-care systems so I'm not sure why you want to adopt that!!


U.S. Ranks Last Among Seven Countries on Health System Performance Based on Measures of Quality, Efficiency, Access, Equity, and Healthy Lives

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/News/News-Releases/2010/Jun/US-Ranks-Last-Among-Seven-Countries.aspx

But hey you keep banging that US health-system drum :rolleyes:
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Rather interesting that we come last on 'Patient centered Care' and 'Long, Heathy and Productive lives' and yet still comes second overall. Something wrong with how that survey is weighted me thinks. Long healthy productive lives, is a representation of education and longterm preventative treatment, something our NHS fails at miserably. Our GP service has no recall system, no annual assessment, no checkup, so things are sorted when they occur, there is little screening, bar cervical and breast cancer.

This is where we need to improve, if we want to save money in the longterm.
 
mollymoo said:
Errrm see my previous post. Paying a nominal fee has nothing to do with affording it as you eloquently put it, more to do with accepting responsibility for your actions.
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The folks who take up 80% of the GP time, will be exempt from payment anyway, and thus will continue to take up the time.
Look at the figures on sickness of self-employed versus employed, and private sector versus public sector, and those who work versus those who avoid work. It certainly isn't all to do with morale.
 
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