Abolish the NHS to save lives, institute demands
The NHS should be abolished to save lives, a paper by the Institute of Economic Affairs, said on Thursday.
The report called for the health service to be replaced with a system of social insurance, showing that countries that have such models have far superior outcomes.
The think tank’s study revealed that Britain has almost the highest levels of deaths that could have been avoided with the right treatment, second only to Greece.
An idle question - I wonder how many people in the UK didn't know about superior health outcomes elsewhere? Presumably there are a large number who didn't know or don't want to know. Otherwise the demand for fundamental change would be politically deafening by now.
It seems to be one of those social divisions - people who wish to be reasonably well-informed about important issues such as this and people who aren't comfortable with knowing how bad things are. Comfort zones have much to answer for - avoidable deaths in this case.
4 comments:
People don't know about this stuff because they are relentlessly bombarded with the view that the NHS is the best thing ever. It's a sort of "broken record" technique, based on the idea that people have only got so much time and energy to receive and scrutinise messages. If you ensure that there is only one message, repeated endlessly, then they've switched off long before an alternative can be presented.
"A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth" (Joseph Goebbels).
Its always amused me that the very same people who demand we rejoin the EU would also have a complete fit if one suggested abolishing the NHS and replacing it with a European style social insurance model healthcare system. How you can simultaneously hold the ideas that both the EU and NHS are the best thing since sliced bread I have no idea.
Perhaps Brexiteers should suggest to the EU that they demand the removal of the NHS as a quid pro quo for us rejoining, on the grounds we should be 'good Europeans' and show solidarity with the rest of Europe!
A relation who lives abroad has no awareness of how the health service is organised in the country she lives in. She has no idea of how the health services of France, Germany or Switzerland differ from the NHS. But she's certain that the NHS is great.
Sam - yes it's a pity propaganda can be that straightforward, but it is in this case. Endless TV series about doctors and hospitals have probably pushed the message for decades and we've all seen ambulances whizzing around with their blue lights flashing and sirens going. Goebbels was right.
Sobers - ideas that both the EU and NHS are the best thing since sliced bread seem to be comfort zones where troublesome responsibility is taken away. Your quid pro quo would make their heads explode, it would be a trade-off and supporters of the EU and NHS seem to become upset by the prospect of having to accept trade-offs.
decnine - the general attitude seems to be quite common, people go along with Net Zero while apparently having no idea of what it means to their lives and how it must degrade their standard of living. Failing to look behind the message is remarkably common and quite difficult to understand in adults, but we see it all the time.
Post a Comment