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Surely the ideal for those who advocate a minimum state is no role for the state at all? However, at the very least the state would be required to provide international representation for a nation abroad. Therefore, the police force can be privatised as I have shown so would you support that as a supporter of the minimum state? Yes or no?
Oh dear can't your liberal website supply you with an answer to that one? :rolleyes:
FYI I got As in both my Politics and Economics A-levels, I am well aware of what a minimum state is, you on the other hand I fear are not. Maybe you should take your own advice... :rolleyes:
The NHS was/is an excellent idea , we simply havent found the best way to run it yet.
So?
Actually it wouldn't. Health is a merit good like education, meaning people don't see the real value in it and so would not pay the necessary amounts to fund the health service to the standard demanded. Therefore if it was privatised it would suffer permanent shortfalls of income making it more inefficent. Also a privatised NHS would lose the huge economies of scale from purchasing medicine and hospital beds thus increasing operating costs for little point. The health service would also lose the power of monopsony which means that by being virtually the only employer for doctors and nurses it can keep the wage rates artificially low. In fact all studies have shown that pound for pound the NHS funded by taxation gets the most value for money out of every healthcare system in the world. The current problems with the NHS come from the underfunding of the Conservative years which are now slowly but surely being put right.
Although, to be blunt efficiency is usually code for job losses and worsening customer services and unnecessary duplication of services in the name of "competition" see the current fiasco with directory enquiries or Royal Mail.
Well duh...:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
The shouldn't really remain a wholly state owned enterprise. Whilst there is PFI, there must be room for extra private investment. Ideally, there should be no NHS at all.
No NHS? So what would somebody below the breadline do if their kid had leukimia and they couldn't afford to go private?
Don't think Monocrat should be put on Ignore, but it should definitely be ignored...
If some top earners were to go bankrupt because of the increased taxes, they should seek help from charities.
Much better, don't you think?
The usual Communist bullshit.
What a load of nonsense.
Yeah, spending money on a service to improve it! Honestly, Aladdin everyone knows the way to improve services is to increase directors pay and shareholders dividends!
Seriously though, can you right wingers not see the obvious link - Britain embraced your philosophy of low taxes and privatisation and we have the worst public services in Europe and our people work the longest hours and generally have a lower quality of life than most of our fellow EU members. I would be interested to see if any of the right wing members on here could actually list some positive achievements for British society from the Thatcherite agenda pursued by the government since 1979?
Incidentally Aladdin, I'd like to also nominate the National Grid, British Nuclear Fuels, Air Traffic Control and Transco for full nationalisation while getting rid of private sector involvement in refuse collection, the NHS, schools and Royal Mail. Edit: Oh and get the private sector out of Directory Enquiries too - it'd be worth it just to get rid of these god awful adverts.
Except that the Labour goverment has been in power for several years now. It has spent all that time throwing taxpayers money at the problem of the NHS, and for what? It certainly hasn't improved anything.
So typical of you to object to a free market economy...
Also , European countries have massively bloated public services , which cost huge amounts to maintain.
Look at the German health service , the government is so short of cash to pay for the 5 star treatment offered by it that they are asking people to pay extra every time they go to the doctors!
Or how about the French pension service , the government gives people a huge pension when they retire , which it cannot afford.
Public services are inefficient , bloated , cost huge amounts to run , they cannot go bust , so there is no incentive to better work practices or improve services.
Blair has hired 600,000 new public service bureaucrats with his huge injections of cash , little of that money has reached the taxpayer.
Margaret Thatcher was the best prime minister this country has had since Winston Churchill. Ridicule her if you will , but without her , Britain would not be the global power it is today.
You see, it doesn't matter how much money public services cost. Public services are not there to return massive profits for its directors. They are there to serve the public, and the interests of the public and the service users go directly against those of shareholders and company directors, whose only concern is to make the maximum amount of profit possible at the expense of everything else.
Like Kev said, it is astonishing you right wingers of all people cannot see this fundamental principle.
As for Thatcher, well people obviously have very polarised opinions of her. I believe she was one of the worst things that ever happened to this country. Ask yourself who benefited from her premiership.
Of all the pros and cons, data for and against, one thing does it for me: when Thatcher came into power the 16% of children lived under the poverty line. When she left it had more than doubled to 33%. That's all I need to know.
P.S. I agree with that list of industries that need to be re-nationalised Kev. If only we had a government with the balls to implement it!
Oh bullshit.
The only positive things that occured under Thathcer were the creation of a stable economy and the supression of trade union activity (which I feel people across the political spectrum would, in all honesty, agree was too excessive in the 1970's).
How would you know if the NHS has improved, you live abroad for a start and if you were treated for illness in the UK I very much doubt you could get a good view of NHS services from your BUPA hospital room.
The NHS is improving, it does take time to turn round 18 years of severe underinvestment by right wingers like yourself. There are no more ward closures, hospitals aren't having to cancel operations through lack of money as occurred in the 80s, the reality is there are more doctors, more nurses, more hospitals, more resources and waiting lists are falling and have fallen because the NHS is now recieving the necessary investment - what I believe you called "throwing money at the NHS".
So typical of you to mouth off about something when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. :rolleyes:
I haven't lived abroad all of my life. I am currently a student at a British university. I have had plenty of experience of the British medical system, both public and private.
As for the NHS being of a much better quality, I have one thing to say to you: Ingrid Nicholls. :rolleyes:
So typical of you to resort to mockery when you've run out of sound arguments.
When are you talking about ? like recently or years ago?
Both. Had all my immunisations on the NHS. Had private healthcare as an adult. I've been to the hospital as an adult. I thought that the guy sitting next to me with a knife-slash in his cheek was a charming feature.
Look at the evidence above, also by massively bloated I assume you mean that everyone can get treated immediately? And by cost huge amounts to maintain are funded properly.
Whereas we pay for prescriptions here and yet still in the 80s hospitals had to beg for donations to keep them performing essential tasks like A&E. Asking for donations to maintain a 2 star service if you will.
Unlike in Britain where people faithfully pay large amounts of their salaries into private pensions only to find their firms took payment holidays during the good years leaving these employees with a pittance of a pension if their scheme isn't cancelled altogether.
Yes how dare schools pay teachers, buy books and computers; how dare hospitals buy X-ray machines and beds and employ doctors and nurses. The whole point is they are services, they aren't designed to make money they are designed to provide a service and they would cost an awful lot to run in the private sector so you can either have a large insurance premium or we can all spread the costs and enjoy the economic benefits of economies of scale and monopsony of a state run, tax funded system.
Yes how dare the government hire more doctors, nurses and teachers. The money wouldn't reach the taxpayer because it would be spent on providing services for the taxpayer - or can you not grasp that? :rolleyes:
No but you have lived abroad since Labour came to power by your own admission. Also your experience of the NHS is you say limited to your immunisations which are usually done at school except for the ones before the first few years which would have been carried out under the Conservative government which means you would only have seen the underfunded NHS of old.
Yes, let's talk about Ingrid Nicholls - she was offered a white prosthetic foot when she is black, the foot is designed for walking on so she was offered a limb to walk on. Also if the hospital had a supply of black limbs in a majority white area you would no doubt accuse the trust of wasting money. But most importantly let's look at the end result - she has got the black prosthetic limb she requested on the NHS. Shock! Horror! She got what she wanted on the NHS!
I have lots of sound arguments so I don't feel the need to start insulting people. Unlike some people. :rolleyes: