Anybody thinking of voting for Reform should look very carefully at their health policy. Nigel Farage has long been an advocate of introducing a health system based on the American model of health insurance, which regularly denies people care even if they have insurance. And they don’t deal with people with ‘pre-existing conditions’.
Reform doesn’t call for an insurance system. They know that it wouldn’t be very popular with the electorate. But their policy is clearly designed to undermine the NHS and open the way to an insurance model in the future. The evidence?
Firstly, they are proposing to subsidise private healthcare with a 20% tax relief on all private healthcare and insurance. They say that this “will improve care for all by relieving pressure on the NHS. Those who rely on the NHS will enjoy faster, better care. Independent healthcare capacity will grow rapidly, providing competition and reducing costs.”
Secondly, they also propose that NHS patients will receive a voucher for private treatment if they can’t see a GP within 3 days, a consultant in 3 weeks, for an operation in 9 weeks. That is additional subsidised private healthcare, except it could not possibly work because the private sector does not have the capacity. It would cause chaos.
So they support the rapid growth of private healthcare. The NHS will ‘compete’ with it. Far from facilitating better care in the NHS it will poach staff and take work away from it. Of course, since private healthcare is only interested in profit, it does not do work which would undermine its profit margins. It tends to do ‘industrial’ type work, such as hip replacements and cataract operations. It has no emergency care nor intensive care. So when the private sector makes mistakes, the NHS has to clear up the mess, and pick up the bill. 6,000 patients a year are admitted from private hospitals to the NHS.
The greater the weight of private healthcare, then the more likely there will be a demand from those who use it, why should we pay for the NHS when we don’t use it? It will entrench a two tier system which will lead to the NHS becoming a service for the poor, as those with the money can avoid the queue. It will be a rescue service for those who cannot afford private care. Most people are happy to pay for the NHS in their taxes because, even if they don’t need it in the present, they know some day they will.
“One of the things that people who promote a two-tier system never point out is how premiums can quickly rocket as soon as someone gets a chronic condition or develops cancer,” noted David Rowland, director of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest. “In the event that someone’s condition becomes uninsurable or they can’t pay, what then? A depleted NHS might not be there as a safety net to look after them.”
Vote for Reform and it could literally ruin your health if you can’t afford to go private and the NHS deteriorates as a result of increased support for the private sector.
Martin Wicks
Martin Wicks 