The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Link: Telegraph | News | Wounded soldiers ‘get appalling health care’.

I defer to no-one in my respect for our armed forces, but aren’t these stories rather missing the point? The ‘appalling’ health care that our soldiers are receiving is exactly the same as that for all Brits not fortunate enough to have private health insurance or to be Government ministers.

The NHS is a disaster. Labour doubled expenditure on it and it is STILL a disaster. Filthy, disease-ridden hospitals in which patients are subjected to humiliation and neglect are a disgrace to us all.

Dealing with the NHS is like having a T. Rex change your bandages. It doesn’t matter how much it cares or how well-meaning it is, or with what good intentions it was assigned the task. It is just too big, clumsy and stupid to do a good job.

It is time the government got out of the healthcare business and back into social insurance. Healthcare professionals should run hospitals, not government bureaucrats. The hospitals should be steadily sold over the next 10 years to the highest qualified bidders and the government should in future simply write cheques to refund treatment costs paid directly by patients.

It’s how the French do it. They are very proud of their acquis sociaux and yet feel no need to have doctors and nurses working for their government. “Social justice” requires that medical care is available to all, rich and poor. It does not matter how that is achieved. Enough dogma already. The generation that designed this mess is dying, in massive indignity, in NHS barracks. It’s time to ditch their stupid idea.

What exactly is “new” about New Labour’s desire to hold on to the discredited socialist healthcare policies of the 1940’s?