US real median wages have been stagnant since the 80's so if the "spectacular" productivity was a factor it would not be so bad. The US healthcare system comes at a huge cost, to US society. More bankruptcies are down to medical costs than any other factor. They cannot afford their system either.

While I will accept that UK health costs have been rising faster than ever part of that is down to incompetence, and over management which was brought in under Thatcher and Major. Though I am not so sure that the broad reforms will work either. Freezing expenditure would be a start, but since healthcare has large wage costs that is an area that needs to be addressed, and the Doctors contract negotiated under New Labour was a major screw up. Though if doctors were not loaded with debt from training it might be possible to cut the costs of healthcare.



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Way to completely avoid the point. Spectacular even by your standards of segue excellence.

I thought most of the increase was due to a rapidly aging population, living longer therefore incurring more costs?

Life expectancy is certainly a big factor, as well as success in overcoming many life threatening conditions. Though some problems are not helped by the way the NHS tries to get things done on the cheap. I knew someone with an irregular heartbeat, though rather give him a pacemaker he was given drugs, which initially cheaper had side effects and then more drugs to deal with those and the they had side effects. In the end he was on twenty or so pills and these were costing more per annum than a pacemaker. Yet for five years he was going backwards and forwards to his GP and these trips alone must add to the costs. If these were properly planned for he might have been offered the pacemaker far earlier and before the costs were so high and the alternatives becoming fewer and fewer.


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So we probably all agree that something ought to be done to reform the NHS, even if we aren't on the same page about what precisely that might be.

But just as that indicates that arch Tories are wrong when they accuse you of being nothing but a profligate wastrel who intends to create an NHS so costly and ossified it cannot be saved, so are you equally wrong when you accuse them of plotting to destroy the entire thing.

Yet you will make the same childish and nasty claim again because you can't help yourself. Which is why you deserve the insults they throw at you.

And it's completely off topic for the thread anyway.

If we try very hard, we might also manage to agree that the bedroom tax is a clumsy idea, and that there are surely better ways to go about aligning incentives within the benefits system. We can probably do that without recourse to childishly accusing anyone of evil intent. Just as we can surely all agree that suicide is an overreaction to the burden of excessive housing, without resorting to scorn for a vulnerable old lady whose despair was probably inspired by a variety of sources.

There are so many on and off topic things that we can achieve together, so long as we are prepared to eschew cartoonish misrepresentation for our own part, as surely as we condemn it when we notice others doing it to us, wouldn't you say?

Why was it a screw up? Presumably you're talking about GP pay here. Pre-NHS contract, GP pay hadn't gone up for something like five years in line with inflation. They also didn't pay their employees pensions. After the new contract, GP pay was brought up to line with inflation, and were also given more money so they could pay their own employees contributions. None of it was "more money" - it was just shifting of money from one place to another. Even now, the DoH wants GPs to pay their locum pensions and will increase funding to reflect this. Not sure how it could work out but it looks to me that if you don't employ locums at all, you'll be better off than a practice that has had to do so eg if a doctor was on sick leave or annual leave.

On one of the doctors' forums I'm in, the GPs have been talking about pay. In the 1990s, a GP would take home approx 6x national average full time wage. This has now dropped to something like 4x. Workload has now skyrocketted in comparison - to the point where GPs are having to spend more time doing paperwork than seeing patients.

To your average joe this is not going to engender any sympathy, no matter how merited the pay may be.
That seems to be an issue in many jobs, you end up doing more processess and paperwork than actually doing the job you were hired to do... welcome to the paperless office

Part of the problem is the media spin put on issues like pay. People pay something like £60/yr to see their GP as many times as needed. If you privatised the whole thing, you can be sure it would be a lot more than that. Private policies are rocketing and some people are paying £100s or £1000s and now won't cover many things. Hernia operations and varicose veins are considered "low priority treatment" on the NHS. What's funny is that the private insurers are declining to fund this work too now. I find it slightly amusing that private companies are starting to limit things in the same way the NHS has had to limit things. The problem is that in the end, it's the patients who suffer.

I don't understand health insurance in the UK. The one provided to me by work covers **** all, such as wisdom teeth removal or eye tests and if you claim on it for a chronic condition, they will not cover anything vaguely related to that condition. Really it's only good if you're hit by a car on your way to work.

The policies seem to vary. There are some which will only cover if the NHS option is more than six weeks from appointment letter. Some will cover everything. Some will cover everything except xyz. Some have restrictions on who you see or where you are treated. Patients have to have a questionnaire every time the policy is up (eg every 1, 2 or 5 years) and the insurance can apply access to a patient's records so more difficult for them to "lie" to lower cover/premiums.

This entirely different to what I have which sickness cover. Basically, if something happens to me and I can't work as a doctor, it pays out. This is contrast to some policies where if you can work (even as a shelf stacker) you don't get anything.