(Please forgive the lack of eloquence in the following excerpt for I am still rather hung over from a combination of debating soc and Halloween last night)
Out of all the differences between Huhney Monster and Cleggosaurus this is probably the most striking one policy wise. Huhney Monster is either relatively mainstream within the party with his views on the NHS or is just keeping them a secret while the Cleggosaurus quite openly wants to (*DIM DUM DAHHHHHH*) DISMANTLE THE NHS (shock horror!!!)... and replace it with a more European system (i.e. a better funded, partly private, publicly regulated one) of socialized universal healthcare.
But hang on a second! Aren't we meant to be the party of free universal public services? Surely the Beveridgians will have a fit if they even hear of this within the party, let alone if we are led by someone with these views. Surely Labour will spin this as Lib Dems wanting to, well, dismantle the NHS? Will this mean we end up portraying ourselves as more right wing and just end up pissing off the old SDP members? These are all serious questions we have to consider and one thing I'd really like to see from the Cleggosaurus is an outline of his beliefs on healthcare (anybody got a useful link?)
Whatever the weather, this is something that seriously needs debate, perhaps I shall post something on lib dem voice when my headache has receded.
About Me
- John Dixon
- I'm an 19 year old student from Surrey, active lib dem member and part time political commentator. Confidently unconfident and certain in my own uncertainty.
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10 comments:
Sounds like it doesn't go far enough...
The NHS is a fundamentally illiberal institution, even if its aims are noble.
There is no need for a state run system. We are against monopolies in industry, why do we support them in other areas? They behave in just the same way...
There are many ways to ensure that nobody is left needed essential medical care whilst offering a better service with no state monopoly.
Huhney Monster v. Cleggosaurus - you should have a picture like this: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/6/6c/250px-Munky_vs_Dino.jpg
"But hang on a second! Aren't we meant to be the party of free universal public services?"
- You already answered than in the prvious sentence: "and replace it with a more European system (i.e. a better funded, partly private, publicly regulated one) of socialized universal healthcare."
You can have a free of charge health service, which is funded but not produced by the public sector. For some models, see the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerlands.
As far as I know, poor patients aren't actually abandoned to their fate in these countries. Or are you saying, that the Netherlands or the Switzerland has a worse health care system than the UK? In the light of the statistics, I don't think so.
With respect, the idea that a shift to be more like the conventional social democrat European models, is some kind of shift to the right, doesn't make sense to me.
Mr Clegg said in his speech last week about this:
"We need to set some ground rules here: our universal public services must be free to use and accessible to all. But beyond that, I want us to think afresh about how they should be funded and delivered."
So I guess that's his position - however obviously there is scope for quite a bit more detail there, so why don't you write to him and ask him about it?
On Huhne's position, actually he is not hiding his view at all - his very longstanding view is that the NHS should be radically reformed to make it much more decentralised (ie more of a local and less of a national health service). See the "Huhne Commission" report of 2002 for more on this.
This approach has also often been portrayed by the press as "breaking up the NHS" (to quote your title) - though personally I strongly agree with it.
France also has a social insurance system, and Belgium's is mostly social-insurance funded - q.v. http://www.ess-europe.de/en/health_systems.htm
(plus the Czech Republic, where I live and where it works way better than the NHS, although there are still problems that need sorting. Czechs are pretty disparaging about the NHS.)
The key thing in this debate is not to get sidetracked by the US system. There's a world of difference between the uncaring US and a European-style social insurance system in which insurance is compulsory and paid progressively according to income, children are all insured free by the state etc.
As Jeremy's post suggests, people in countries with social insurance systems wouldn't think of their systems as right-wing at all.
What everyone else has said. ;-)
Both candidates believe in universal healthcare, but believe the NHS as it stands should be "broken up" and replaced with something more accountable to local people.
And beyond that, I imagine both will leave the policy detail to Conference and the FPC to thrash out.
So there's really not that much difference except to suggest that both are equally radical!
Of course the NHS is already partly private in the sense that GP practises are generally owned by the practitioners. Perhaps they should be nationalised, I don't know.
Anyway, what I find interesting, Mr Radical is that you seek to paint Clegg's position as being against universality or free-at-the-point-of-use.
Why do you do this? Why? Why? Please tell us! You know it's wrong! Resist! RESIST!
To all those dear fellows and fellowettes acusing me of seeing Clegg's ideas as far right wing ukip style privatisation I'm sorry to dissapoint by saying 'sorry but I find them tottally reasonable and within the grounds of my mild socialist tendencies'. However, this is the sort of thing which may get thorwn at us by labour, and will be a myth we will have to dispell about any future healthcare policies, but thnx for the response anyways, I'm working on creating a suitable leadership race picture now and also thankyou very much to Jeremy Hargreaves for telling me where to find huhney's link,
radical,
I think it is fair to say that there are some policies that the Tories would be mad to touch with a barge pole, because the people, rightly, do not trust them on public service reform.
So there are charges that, if thrown at them, by Labour, would stick. Even if, for once, they weren't justified.
This doesn't mean that similar charges would stick to the Lib Dems.
I think they could, we underestimate the new labour spin machine at our peril, it would be wise to remember that David Cameron never actually wanted to hug a hoodie until Labour spin doctors made it so. They could do just the same to us making us appear far more libertarian than we really are. annoying as it is scare tactics work. It'll be very easy for them to label us under this policy as the guys who want to dismantle the nhs but very hard for us to explain to the public what we actually want to do.
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