Nurses to strike

[cromwell]

No, not Bupa. I have a plan with Aviva, the more you pay the bigger the choice of private hospitals.
If the NHS cannot see me within 3 days I am automatically seen the next day by a private hospital, regardless of what it is, but not existing issues as you said. My best option is a hospital call Renacres in Ormskirk, hope I never see the inside of it.

And I hope so too,but as I recently pointed out to you insurance companies have form for avoiding paying out.

To remind you it was someone self employed long term paying insurance and for critical care too,when they got cancer the cover was withdrawn,at their lowest ebb they were fighting a company though it was only after the nhs had done what it does best and they had recovered they won against that company.

[Nick]

You really think striking nurses are also going to be scab labour.  That is cloud cuckoo land.

I think you've been sucking on too much swamp gas, nothing scab about working in the private sector.
Strangely, another place nurses pick up extra wedge that's not mentioned. Imagine if a Squadie went and did a couple of weeks private security for King Hussain in the summer, you lot would flip your lid. Double standards.

[Nick]

OK so Iwill ask you again would you privatise it?

I would, it was a damn site cheaper whilst I lived in the States than here, assuming you're in reasonable health, otherwise a heart attach will attract bills of £50K before the insurance pays up. 

[Nick]

While they are striking, they can work for nursing agencies, the NHS will gladly pay over the odds to fill the gaps, as they do now.
The NHS lose, the private nursing agency and the nurse win.

Which was my exact point about private hospitals, and the fact they should be blocked from working in them whilst striking.

[Nick]

So the nurses have been finally driven to strike. It was inevitable that this point would come. Year after year of pay freezes or rises well below inflation -12 years and counting now - are de facto annual pay cuts year after year which they are being dished more of now. Each and every year they are being made poorer than the last with no apparent end in sight. The service is increasingly on it's knees due to nurses and doctors voting with their feet and walking away, making the job ever more difficult for those that remain, for which they keep getting rewarded with more de facto pay cuts.

They only have two choices. Walk away altogether as ever more of them are doing, or take a stand. They have been driven into this corner, and Tory idealogues around here notwithstanding, most of the public understands their plight and will be behind them. Enough is surely enough.

No they're not getting poorer, this old chestnut about pay rises isn't true, they get pay increases based on years of service and bands but everyone keeps quiet about that. 
As I've said a hundred times, the armed forces are far lower paid, look at the pay scales and years required to get anywhere near a nurses pay.

A Squadie starts on £16K, a nurse starts on £20K. 

[Nick]

All risks medical insurance is FAR more than that. (£12000 a year the last time I checked.)

That's cause you're 650 years old, I am not. 

[Nick]

Are you talking BUPA or something similar? Those prices are age and medical condition dependent aren't they?
They refuse to cover some existing conditions, or cancers?
No, I believe in a form of national health service, but not the NHS we have at the moment.

No, not Bupa. I have a plan with Aviva, the more you pay the bigger the choice of private hospitals. 
If the NHS cannot see me within 3 days I am automatically seen the next day by a private hospital, regardless of what it is, but not existing issues as you said. My best option is a hospital call Renacres in Ormskirk, hope I never see the inside of it.

[Borchester]

Too much privatisation by the back door has indeed long been a major part of the problem. Yet they remain ideologically obsessed with this supposed panacea.

GPs and dentists are invariably private concerns as are care workers. NHS Consultants are only NHS Consultants as long as they are allowed their private practices.

Most of us like the idea of going into hospital alive and leaving the same way. The left wing idea that the NHS was set up to be some sort of socialist care home is not the case.

[T00ts]

But if anyone were to ask me if I thought everyone should be paid exactly the same I'd have no problem refuting it. Yet when asked if you think the NHS should be privatised, you cannot refute it. "No idea" just doesn't cut it and looks like the very hedging and obfuscation I described.

So you expect a definitive answer from me that generations have been unable to decide? Be fair! I can tell you from experience what I see as wrong with it but then you demand a decision. Typical Lefty!  

[cromwell]

I have absolutely no idea. It's a behemoth. I want everyone to have access to free medical care but not 2nd or even 3rd rate care. It should be funded to a much higher standard than currently but spending has to be properly monitored so that good modern treatments/equipment/systems are the priority not the Christmas parties and non jobs for the bosses etc. In it's current state who on earth would take it on even if it was decided to sell it? Surely we would have a situation like Elon Musk's take over of Twitter and mass redundancies. I really feel it is beyond help and that's the fault of all politicians of all colours.
It is right that anyone who wants to pay should. It isn't only the rich who do. Like private education some families make it a priority rather than holidays, new cars etc. Those people actually pay for health care and education twice.You know that's really rather annoying. It would be like me saying to you that secretly you would prefer that everyone was paid at the same rate regardless of ability or what they produce for the country for no other reason than you are a lefty. Because I vote Conservative it does not define who I am anymore than your vote does you. Don't pretend to put words in my mouth or know my views on everything particularly as the reason I came here in the first place was that I wasn't sure. I have formed many views by listening to the alternatives as voiced here.

To answer that in bold and underlined isn't that what I've been saying and that it should be done by a cross party body.
To answer another point there are plenty of people in a position to have no choice over either new cars  and holidays or private healthcare as they can afford neither.

[srb7677]

You know that's really rather annoying. It would be like me saying to you that secretly you would prefer that everyone was paid at the same rate regardless of ability or what they produce for the country for no other reason than you are a lefty. Because I vote Conservative it does not define who I am anymore than your vote does you. Don't pretend to put words in my mouth or know my views on everything particularly as the reason I came here in the first place was that I wasn't sure. I have formed many views by listening to the alternatives as voiced here.

But if anyone were to ask me if I thought everyone should be paid exactly the same I'd have no problem refuting it. Yet when asked if you think the NHS should be privatised, you cannot refute it. "No idea" just doesn't cut it and looks like the very hedging and obfuscation I described.

[T00ts]

OK so Iwill ask you again would you privatise it?

I have absolutely no idea. It's a behemoth. I want everyone to have access to free medical care but not 2nd or even 3rd rate care. It should be funded to a much higher standard than currently but spending has to be properly monitored so that good modern treatments/equipment/systems are the priority not the Christmas parties and non jobs for the bosses etc. In it's current state who on earth would take it on even if it was decided to sell it? Surely we would have a situation like Elon Musk's take over of Twitter and mass redundancies. I really feel it is beyond help and that's the fault of all politicians of all colours.
It is right that anyone who wants to pay should. It isn't only the rich who do. Like private education some families make it a priority rather than holidays, new cars etc. Those people actually pay for health care and education twice.

I think like many Tories she secretly rather would, still beholden to the disproven ideological assumption that private enterprise is the solution to everything. Gas, electricty, water, the postal service, local busses, and railways all solidly disprove that assumption, but they still believe it regardless.

They are however often very shy at spelling out this desire insofar as the NHS is concerned because they know it is massively unpopular. So hence we tend to get hedging and obfuscation. But we all know many Tories do not believe in the NHS as a public entity at all. They imagine that with shareholders, massively paid CEOs, and profiteering at every turn, everything will start being honky dory, when in fact we'd be all far more likely to end up paying more for less. Except the very wealthy of course who would be the main beneficiaries of shifting funding away from general taxation onto some other more regressive funding model.

You know that's really rather annoying. It would be like me saying to you that secretly you would prefer that everyone was paid at the same rate regardless of ability or what they produce for the country for no other reason than you are a lefty. Because I vote Conservative it does not define who I am anymore than your vote does you. Don't pretend to put words in my mouth or know my views on everything particularly as the reason I came here in the first place was that I wasn't sure. I have formed many views by listening to the alternatives as voiced here. 

[srb7677]

The NHS has, like our other favourite secular religion the Church of England, was privatised long ago.

Too much privatisation by the back door has indeed long been a major part of the problem. Yet they remain ideologically obsessed with this supposed panacea.

[srb7677]

OK so Iwill ask you again would you privatise it?

I think like many Tories she secretly rather would, still beholden to the disproven ideological assumption that private enterprise is the solution to everything. Gas, electricty, water, the postal service, local busses, and railways all solidly disprove that assumption, but they still believe it regardless.

They are however often very shy at spelling out this desire insofar as the NHS is concerned because they know it is massively unpopular. So hence we tend to get hedging and obfuscation. But we all know many Tories do not believe in the NHS as a public entity at all. They imagine that with shareholders, massively paid CEOs, and profiteering at every turn, everything will start being honky dory, when in fact we'd be all far more likely to end up paying more for less. Except the very wealthy of course who would be the main beneficiaries of shifting funding away from general taxation onto some other more regressive funding model.

[Borchester]

OK so Iwill ask you again would you privatise it?

The NHS has, like our other favourite secular religion the Church of England, was privatised long ago.