One for for Genghis Khan

[Moscow Mule]

20% NICs???? Not free at point of delivery

Despite being expensive to maintain and under constant funding pressure, the French healthcare service is still one of the best in the world, offering a wide choice of general practitioners and healthcare specialists. For those who have experience of the health system in France and, for example, the UK, the contrast in standards can be startling.

The French healthcare system is funded by the working population. French employees pay about 20 per cent of their gross salary – the self-employed pay even more - deducted at source, to fund the social security system, known as Sécurité sociale.. A significant proportion of this money goes towards public healthcare, to which every legal resident of France has access under the law of universal coverage called la Couverture maladie universelle.

http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-healt...cle.asp?ID=197

[DodgyAgent]

Who says you need a hip replacement? Your GP? Physio? Or an Orthopedic Surgeon?

Typically you'd need to go through 3-4 different vouchers for such a major operation.

You're introducing a whole layer of administration into a system already burdened with too many managers.

You're also introducing a two tier system where folk who can afford to travel to the better hospitals get to use their voucher there (I'm assuming here that your voucher is only good for so much ambulance/transfer)

Nice idea, unworkable I'd say.

The same objections apply to the provision of food. The poor can only afford to travel to the local Lidl, asda or morrisons, whereas the wealthier can get jeeves to drop them at Waitrose, or even deliver at home (there's a thought.. I bet with a bit of consumer choice you will suddenly start finding that the health services begin to think of imaginitive ways to deliver top quality healthcare). In most instances the customers will stay close to home, but the mere threat of being able to take your business elsewhere is good enough to keep providers on their toes.

At the moment what is happening is that doctors are meeting patients entirely on their own terms. Hospitals are closing for the (false) sake of "efficiency" and services are getting worse even though more money is being poured into the NHS. At this rate there is no reason to think that in 50 years time all our income will be going to the NHS and to service one hospital for the entire country.

In any area there are probabaly between 3 to 6 food retailers. If the public sector delivered food (remember communism?) then there would be only one supermarket and look what would happen then. far better to have duplicate services competing with each other than just one monopoly.

[rootsnall]

Isn't that the French model (Private hospitals competing for public money)? Which is widely regarded as one of the best in the world, why can't we just copy it?

It costs a fortune and they are getting ticked off for huge public spending deficits. Pretty similar to the UK then ! Somebody quoted figures showing ours costs nearly as much but I'm sure they spend a lot more per head. I spent a week or so in hospital in Paris after a rugby injury and it was pretty impressive, I was insured but nobody ever asked for any money !?

[DBA_bloke]

Who says you need a hip replacement? Your GP? Physio? Or an Orthopedic Surgeon?

Typically you'd need to go through 3-4 different vouchers for such a major operation.

You're introducing a whole layer of administration into a system already burdened with too many managers.

You're also introducing a two tier system where folk who can afford to travel to the better hospitals get to use their voucher there (I'm assuming here that your voucher is only good for so much ambulance/transfer)

Nice idea, unworkable I'd say.

Now then! I am NOT suggesting it'd be perfect, and I agree that travelling around is one obvious flaw, but it's also a flaw in the current system. A voucher system would, ultimately, lead to each district purging the crappy NHS facilities, and beefing-up the good ones. If no fecker ever visited the tulip places, they'd shutdown in a month. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have now, which is a shameful parody of what the Clement Attlee government envisaged.

Time to have a gutsy rethink.

[HarryPearce]

Fascist is a very strong insult by the way and completely unwarranted in this situation.

Fully warranted I'm afraid, on two grounds. Your use of the word scum, even when used of the super-rich, is typical of such a political orientation. To discard others becuase they do not fit in with your world view which you presume to be the ideal since you yourelf espouse it.

Secondly, fascism can be summed up as a belief that the elite should rule for the benefit of the elite for the elite are the best placed to rule. That is all too typical of those that have sufficient wealth to seperate themseleves off from those who have less but whose wealth is insufficient for them not to envy those who have more.

A fascist oreintation does not merely refer to the BNP skin head. In Chile under Pinochet, Spain under Franco or Argentina under Perone, it was the middle classes who provided the bulwark to the political regimes. They had most to lost and the most to gain.

[kingshuk]

Outsoruce all these to India (not the hip replacement though). It will be much cheaper (even after the air fare) and efficient. It will also make these parts a bit warmer in the long run and then you don't have to worry about energy security as much.

[DBA_bloke]

Outsoruce all these to India (not the hip replacement though). It will be much cheaper (even after the air fare) and efficient. It will also make these parts a bit warmer in the long run and then you don't have to worry about energy security as much.

Some folk HAVE gone to such far-flung places for treatment, and, amazingly, got A1 service, got it cheaply, and didn't come out of their hospitals as a carrier of MRSA, etc.

That paying for the flight to and from another country, paying for the hotel, paying for meals, and paying for the treatment is obviously a viable choice for many is ... well ... what can one say?

[kingshuk]

That paying for the flight to and from another country, paying for the hotel, paying for meals,

Not to forget the visa.

But seriously, I know a person in London who visited India to see a dentist - apparently the estimated cost here was significantly more than what the overall trip cost them.

[wendigo100]

Fully warranted I'm afraid, on two grounds. Your use of the word scum, even when used of the super-rich, is typical of such a political orientation. To discard others becuase they do not fit in with your world view which you presume to be the ideal since you yourelf espouse it.

Secondly, fascism can be summed up as a belief that the elite should rule for the benefit of the elite for the elite are the best placed to rule. That is all too typical of those that have sufficient wealth to seperate themseleves off from those who have less but whose wealth is insufficient for them not to envy those who have more.

A fascist oreintation does not merely refer to the BNP skin head. In Chile under Pinochet, Spain under Franco or Argentina under Perone, it was the middle classes who provided the bulwark to the political regimes. They had most to lost and the most to gain.

Your posts are a bit long, Harry. How do you find the time at work to compose them?

[DodgyAgent]

Your posts are a bit long, Harry. How do you find the time at work to compose them?

He's an agent