O/T:- The NHS strike - for or against?

[upthemaggies]

I'm sure it won't be long before we follow Canada's lead and in time offer euthanasia via TV adverts for anybody over a certain age who's woken up feeling a bit down about life that morning.

There was a time when you could never have imagined that commercials for funeral plans would become a thing, least of all voiced over by the queen of punk Toyah Wilcox. Honestly, this will not surprise me. I can see it now. Gary Lineker sat on the sofa watching a playback of his penalty winner v Cameroon and then pauses with the remote, turns to camera and says, "I thought I could play on until I was 40, but there comes a point where you know you're just going to become a liability to the team by carrying on indefinitely... and that's where Sun Life's euthanasia plan can help you decide when it's time to bow out of the game and be remembered at your peak by all those closest and most special to you. Sign up now for your free gift blending machine."

You'll be doing your bit for the greater good and the survival of the health service by signalling the "I need to be substituted" gesture in the direction that great bench in the sky.

Logans Run will become a reality. They want us all dead.

[GranthamPie]

Lol…. I think you’ve missed your vocation in life UTM!

Reality is though… most of us have spent enough time on hospital wards to realise that old age isn’t going to be any fun. A one way trip to Switzerland becomes more appealing as the years go by.

[Old_pie]

Utter garbage!

The NHS is on its knees because Governments (particularly Tory ones) have refused to separate funding for social care and healthcare. The Government (tax payer) isn’t throwing endless cash at the NHS…quite the opposite.

In postwar Britain, the average life expectancy was 60-70 years…it’s now 80-90 years. In postwar Britain, basic income tax was 27.5%, it’s now 20%. It was 91% for the Rich… it’s now 40%. Infant mortality is now a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of children who used to die from totally preventable illnesses and diseases in the 40s and 50s. Modern medicines and vaccines have transformed our lives!

Yep - clearly the healthcare system isn't working. Just run those numbers by me again, I might have misunderstood.

[jackal2]

So what do you think should be done about it??? Pretty much shows that throwing endless cash at it isn't going to sort it out. The NHS is no longer and hasn't been for a long long time been sustainable in it's current format.

Labour just use it for political points scoring while offering zero ideas!!

I'm not convinced either of the two major parties have the bottle to implement the scale of reform needed. They're both hopelessly compromised, albeit in different ways.

There are private and public sector interests using the sheer size of the NHS to milk the organisation for their own benefit, relatively unchallenged. Probably the only way to prevent/manage that - and it would take a lot of time, persistence and incredible political will and resilience - is by breaking the NHS down into much smaller and more manageable units.

It's a brave politician or party that even suggests trying to do so because, when the vested private/public sector interests sense that their 'jam today' meal ticket is being threatened, they are usually very successful in mobilising public opinion to 'Defend the NHS', and the public are generally gullible enough to buy that narrative, so the would-be radical reformers (if they even dare to raise their heads in the first place) tend to water down or back away from doing anything radical enough to make the NHS the truly great entity it could be.

If the NHS carries on more or less in its current form - which is likely in view of the above stalemate - then it will eventually collapse regardless of which political party is in control or what they're spending on it. In that scenario, everyone loses eventually.

[BigFatPie]

I'm not convinced either of the two major parties have the bottle to implement the scale of reform needed. They're both hopelessly compromised, albeit in different ways.

There are private and public sector interests using the sheer size of the NHS to milk the organisation for their own benefit, relatively unchallenged. Probably the only way to prevent/manage that - and it would take a lot of time, persistence and incredible political will and resilience - is by breaking the NHS down into much smaller and more manageable units.

It's a brave politician or party that even suggests trying to do so because, when the vested private/public sector interests sense that their 'jam today' meal ticket is being threatened, they are usually very successful in mobilising public opinion to 'Defend the NHS', and the public are generally gullible enough to buy that narrative, so the would-be radical reformers (if they even dare to raise their heads in the first place) tend to water down or back away from doing anything radical enough to make the NHS the truly great entity it could be.

If the NHS carries on more or less in its current form - which is likely in view of the above stalemate - then it will eventually collapse regardless of which political party is in control or what they're spending on it. In that scenario, everyone loses eventually.

Lol.

[Magpies1959]

Great post jackal2

[TheBlackHorse]

... in 1945-48, people worked up to age 65, died by age 72'ish. Easy call for Libour ... affordable and don't we look good. Since WW2 the Establishment has been infiltrated and run by lefties, thus the NHS is a classic bureacracy with internal empire building and all the petty jealousies associated with socialism. Do you really think senior managers were going to give up on that power? Our inept politicians know sweet fa about how to run anything. The NHS is doomed through feebleness and short termism. It won't matter who is in No 10 ...

[GranthamPie]

... in 1945-48, people worked up to age 65, died by age 72'ish. Easy call for Libour ... affordable and don't we look good. Since WW2 the Establishment has been infiltrated and run by lefties, thus the NHS is a classic bureacracy with internal empire building and all the petty jealousies associated with socialism. Do you really think senior managers were going to give up on that power? Our inept politicians know sweet fa about how to run anything. The NHS is doomed through feebleness and short termism. It won't matter who is in No 10 ...

I’ll have some of what you’re drinking…. lol

[BigFatPie]

... in 1945-48, people worked up to age 65, died by age 72'ish. Easy call for Libour ... affordable and don't we look good. Since WW2 the Establishment has been infiltrated and run by lefties, thus the NHS is a classic bureacracy with internal empire building and all the petty jealousies associated with socialism. Do you really think senior managers were going to give up on that power? Our inept politicians know sweet fa about how to run anything. The NHS is doomed through feebleness and short termism. It won't matter who is in No 10 ...

It’s certainly doomed with the current incumbent in No 10. I blame the people who voted for him and his party. So good I posted it twice.

[Elite_Pie]

I'm not convinced either of the two major parties have the bottle to implement the scale of reform needed.

I'm not convinced either, but we do know this.

One party might fail.
One party has failed.