NHS. Time to go?

[Ignis Fatuus]

whs

I've seen the previously socialised Dutch healthcare system privatised and it's become more expensive, more bureaucratic and now swallows more tax money than ever before.

This is an experience not uncommon in many fields: you think that if you privatise something then there will be efficiency gains, greater choice, and less or no subsidy so you will pay less tax.

Usually the opposite happens: there are efficiency losses due to fragmentation, and profit taken out (reasonably enough that is what private companies go into it for), so more subsidy is needed, not less.

Look at the railways for a fine example: they now get 4 times the subsidy that British Rail got.

[DodgyAgent]

whs

I've seen the previously socialised Dutch healthcare system privatised and it's become more expensive, more bureaucratic and now swallows more tax money than ever before.

How exactly have you come to that conclusion? I presume you have weighed up any changes in services etc?

[DodgyAgent]

This is an experience not uncommon in many fields: you think that if you privatise something then there will be efficiency gains, greater choice, and less or no subsidy so you will pay less tax.

Usually the opposite happens: there are efficiency losses due to fragmentation, and profit taken out (reasonably enough that is what private companies go into it for), so more subsidy is needed, not less.

Look at the railways for a fine example: they now get 4 times the subsidy that British Rail got.

How misleading.

No account taken to extra users of train services, frequency of services etc

[DodgyAgent]

As for Nationalising the Rail network Margaret Hodge hits the nail on the head:

"I think people come into the public service because they want a different sort of challenge," she said. "They are highly skilled, highly intelligent people they’re just not given the appropriate training. Civil servants are never left in the job long enough, the way that you climb the greasy pole in the Civil Service is that you change your job every couple of years, that's a disaster and we need to leave people in post so that they take proper responsibility for the very difficult and complex jobs that they have to do.”
Government sources have said “heads will definitely roll in the department” over the affair. However, they insist “the minister cannot be expected to be responsible for a very technical models witih hundreds of lines in a spreadsheet”.
The key error seems to have been to underestimate the potential value of the franchise - where the company pays a premium to the Government, rather than receiving a subsidy.
The department said mistakes had been made over estimates of the number of passengers who would use the route and the way inflation was calculated.
Just days after taking over as transport secretary last month, Mr McLoughlin had told MPs on the transport committee that he was “satisfied that due diligence was done by the department”.
Yesterday, he said: “I want to make it absolutely clear that neither FirstGroup nor Virgin did anything wrong.
"The fault of this lies wholly and squarely with the Department for Transport. Both of those two companies acted properly on the advice that they were getting from the Department.”
Last night the bill for the taxpayer from the fiasco was mounting. Mr McLoughlin said that taxpayers would have to refund the £40million cost of bidding for the franchise to the four companies.
There could be further costs if other franchises have to be rebid as well. Companies have already submitted tenders to run one of the other three franchises, for Essex Thameside which is due to begin in May 2013.