The British National Health Service is undergoing its greatest upheaval since 1948. In this “mighty £3bn convulsion”, GP-led clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), took over from primary care trusts. These groups will now be responsible for deciding how most of the treatment undertaken in the name of the NHS in England – some £60bn worth – is provided and paid. The main purpose of CCGs is to “bring in maximum competition”. NHS hospitals and trusts will find themselves bidding against the likes of Virgin Care or US healthcare giants, “which are likely to cherry-pick easy and profitable services – diagnostics, routine surgery and simple treatments – leaving behind A&E, the frail, the old, and anything that is unpredictably expensive”.(Polly Toynbee, The Guardian)
The entire NHS will be forced open to the private sector. Supposedly, the new system puts GPs in charge. That’s a “sham”. In reality, most GPs will carry on treating patients, “while commissioning will be managed by private companies”. The new law, the Health and Social Care Act, also allows NHS foundation hospitals to use up to 49% of their facilities for private patients. And the crucial Section 75 regulations – deceitfully inserted only weeks before the Act came into effect – insist that all NHS services must be put out to competitive tender, unless no private firm bids. It’s clear what this means: the end of the NHS. (Owen Jones, The Independent).
The NHS operates, and does a good job, at a cost of 8% of the GNP. The American figure is 16%. This is because it is privatized, taking into account corporate profits and dishonest, bogus charges at the expense of Medicare, the very well-run government health service for the elderly. If you are rich, or lucky enough to work for a firm with a good health policy, you get arguably the best care in the world. If you are poor you take your chances and your life expectancy is rather poor. This is part of the ideology of winner takes all.
The NHS was created to serve the whole people on an equal basis, regardless of income or birth. To that extent it would be approved of by Epicurus as bringing pleasure, security and a healthy life to the greatest number of people. Greed, selfishness and stupidity is unravelling a great institution. No Epicurean would dream of doing such a thing. This Epicurean at least is protesting!
Privatizing government institutions has been the Conservative obsession since the days of Thatcher. Britain, as a result, has a foreign-controlled water supplier. Despite rainfall almost every day of the year, consumers as till confront hosepipe bans, because Compagnie des Eaux refuses to invest. The principal gas supplier, once called British Gas, is also foreign-owned and is known as one of the worst managed companies in the world, along with Verizon. So it goes on. These natural monopolies extract maximum profit and give dire service. Consumers don’t matter to ideologues.