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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (73267)	8/18/2009 1:00:27 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 90947

More socialists calling supporters of free markets unpatriotic - --- NHS attack by MEP 'unpatriotic' Health Secretary Andy Burnham has accused a Tory MEP who attacked the NHS on American TV of being "unpatriotic". news.bbc.co.uk -------- But not everyone on the other side of the pond is a statist - NHS: No Health Statism Written by Steve Bettison Sunday, 16 August 2009 06:02 No system is perfect. But the furthest you can get from perfection is a government controlled monopoly, such as education or healthcare. So it's no wonder to find the people who are culpable for what passes for healthcare provision defending it to the hilt, as if it was flawless, and claiming that those who criticize it are, "un-patriotic". (To see an un-patriotic Dan Hannan truthfully answer questions on the NHS, click here). A healthcare system where users don't have to wait, drugs aren't rationed, care is not substandard and you're not more likely to leave with disease rather than a cure is all people request. What we get is the opposite: and to deny that fact (as Cameron et al. have) is to deny us a proper discussion about how our system needs overhauling. The remote political class are trampling over our desire to discuss the problems we face on a daily basis, a fact made even more galling because undoubtedly the majority of them will hold private health insurance. Having experienced health care on both sides of the Atlantic, and paid for both (please understand that the NHS isn't free!), the NHS is second in a two horse race. That is not to deny the fact that there is a minority within the NHS who do provide excellent health care. But these people are few and far between, and very difficult to find! Politicians live in a land of ignorant bliss, where unprincipled sound bites dispatch them into a fantasyland detached from the pain that we as a whole suffer on daily basis at the hands of the NHS. We need a system that is driven by people and not politicians and their meaningless targets. To get to that stage though we must first hold a debate. adamsmith.org The NHS is not free Written by David Rawcliffe After Daniel Hannan appeared on American TV criticising the NHS, Twitter has been flooded by the #welovethenhs campaign. Looking at the tweets coming in, there’s a striking number saying this sort of thing: NHS = free treatment when you need it. What's not to like? I love NHS emergency care and my ongoing completely free treatment I've had all my dental treatments and optician vouchers on the nhs - without the nhs I'd be at least £1000 poorer Now, of course these people know that the NHS is paid for by taxation, so it’s strange that they give it such credit for being ‘free’. Then again, with NI contributions, stealth taxes, PAYE and government borrowing, it’s all too easy for us to forget how much we actually pay. The next government (in the spirit of Cameroonian transparency) should send each household a yearly receipt. The average household’s would have looked like this last year: Your Income: £30,390 Direct Taxes: £7,396 Indirect Taxes: £4,904 Borrowed On Your Behalf: £1,320 Your Total Bill: £13,620 (45% of your earnings, £6.97 for each hour you worked) Services You Paid For: * Health £2,317 * Pensions £2,285 * Welfare £2,130 * Education £1,740 * Defence £895 * Protection £743 * Debt Interest £689 * Government Costs £564 * Transport £493 * Other Spending £1,767 Telling each citizen how much of their money is taken and for what purpose would stimulate democratic debate over the level and direction of public spending. When holding a receipt in their hand, people might tweet a different tune. NB. Click for sources on taxation and expenditure. adamsmith.org