Reply to: If I had relied on the NHS, I would be dead now

[OwlHoot]

She should have let the man drive then there wouldn't have been a problem...

Seems a man _was_ driving! From Martha: the crash that nearly killed me :

After years of all work and no play she had also found romance. In May 2004 she went on a short break to Morocco with her boyfriend of six weeks, Chris Gorell Barnes. The couple were travelling in a jeep with Gorell Barnes’s best friend Duncan Flower, who was driving, when they crashed near the resort of Essaouira.

[ASB]

Not quite

Ah - a poor innocent that thinks national insurance is hypothecated against the NHS.

It actually all goes into the same pot as general taxation known as the Consolidated Fund. From there it's used to fund all kinds of government frippery.

National Insurance is the most dishonest tax going - but it's useful for conning the chavs into believing it funds their beloved NHS.

There is actually a direct link between NI and NHS funding - can't find the details though.

A speciified percentage of NI is specifically ring fenced. ISTR it's 1% (of the amount collected). Obviously this is diddly squat in terms of total funding but it does mean that a chanceller can keep a straight face when he says "and this rise goes towards funding better healthcare for all".

[LGDT]

nhs

Whats National Insurance contributions then??

Ah - a poor innocent that thinks national insurance is hypothecated against the NHS.

It actually all goes into the same pot as general taxation known as the Consolidated Fund. From there it's used to fund all kinds of government frippery.

National Insurance is the most dishonest tax going - but it's useful for conning the chavs into believing it funds their beloved NHS.

[threaded]

Whats National Insurance contributions then??

Just another form of tax.

[threaded]

She should have let the man drive then there wouldn't have been a problem...

Harsh, but fair.

[steve'O]

Whats National Insurance contributions then??

[LGDT]

Nhs

There seems to be a failure here to understand basic economics. When goods or services are offered free at the point of delivery then demand will always expand to fill capacity.

And therefore there has to be some form of rationing.

Unfortunately we live in a country where a free NHS has become a kind of religion that only right wing nutters can possibly object to.

The fact that only us, Cuba and North Korea offer such a service seems to escape the NHS addicts.

Even those European paragons of social democratic virtue - France, Germany, Sweden etc have some form of social insurance to top up the free service. And guess what? - no waiting lists, decent hospitals and a service attuned to the consumers and not the producer interests that control it here.

Privatise the bloody thing and have done with it.

[hyperD]

For how many more decades will people blame the tories for the current state of the country?

Traditional Tory supporters will always blame wilson, callaghan and the Winter of Discontent for the disasterous 70's; traditional labour supporters will always blame Thatcher for the 80's.

However, be comforted in the knowledge that EVERYONE will blame blair and his incompentent cohorts for the mess during 1997 - 2009.

[steve'O]

She's pretty much talking out her bottom. I had a serious accident during the Tory regime and spent 5 months in hospital and saw the same thing. At the same time both the Falklands war soldiers who had the same injuries were up and out of hospital months before me and I recall Barry Sheene having a big accident but if you have money or a Tory backer then you were up and about in no time. The Tories were one of the reasons that I left the country and you're seeing their legacy still today.

I think you will find any political party would have done the same..Prioritise.

You need the soldiers to shoot more Argentinians....
Barry Sheene always looked funny falling off his bike at 180mph (I know I met him) and that's waht he lived for.......
And you were needed for what?.........
Lets face it Jimmy Crankie would have got out before you

[PerlOfWisdom]

The Tories were one of the reasons that I left the country and you're seeing their legacy still today.

For how many more decades will people blame the tories for the current state of the country?

[ratewhore]

She should have let the man drive then there wouldn't have been a problem...

[sunnysan]

Russians in the NHS

Yeah I saw that,

Our eveil government selling off the NHS to the Russian oligarch.

That stuff he had that he injected people with to give them a chemical lobotomy to wip out their memory was scary.

We really need someone to run amok in the house of commons with a syringe of that stuff

Wiping the minds of browny,bliar and 2jags would imporve govt perfomance to no end.

[darmstadt]

She's pretty much talking out her bottom. I had a serious accident during the Tory regime and spent 5 months in hospital and saw the same thing. At the same time both the Falklands war soldiers who had the same injuries were up and out of hospital months before me and I recall Barry Sheene having a big accident but if you have money or a Tory backer then you were up and about in no time. The Tories were one of the reasons that I left the country and you're seeing their legacy still today.

[Rebecca Loos]

She's right though, the NHS is in shambles in terms of front-line resources... a bit like the police, I'd say.

I am quite prepared to blame Labour, not that it is necessarily their fault, but they claimed they'd improve it and if they have (I haven't know the NHS under the Tories) then it must have been catastrophic before.

Not that I always subscribe to the "the nurses are fantastic blablabla" maybe some of them are but I'd guess it is the same as in any civil service, some are crap some are good. However it is not their fault, that is true, that there are not enough of them and too many useless managers.

Incidentally there was a good episode of Spooks yesterday about an Abramovich clone to take over the NHS so he could anihilate Britain!
Some would argue we don't need a mad Russian megalomaniac to do this and are quite able to do it ourselves thank you very much

[BlasterBates]

...what a load of exagerated codswollop.

What she means is there wasn't a nurse on hand to hand her a cola or to water the flowers on the bedside table.