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Comment by imagin8or | Hacker News Reader

Somilarly, the strategy for the Conservative Party in the UK for many years has been to systematically underfund the NHS so that the cracks start to show and they have to fly in with private healthcare or private healthcare insurance provisions. Many party members hate the NHS, but the UK public love it. So they're stuck making claims to support it, but in reality funding per head in real terms falls and falls.

They just have to make it bad enough.

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I don't love the NHS. I think it has shown what happens when you combine the potentially endless expense of healthcare with the beauraucracy of government.

How many other countries justified their Covid lockdowns with statements like "we need to protect our healthcare service"?? Our healthcare service is to protect us.

I live in Wales, where the Labour party has been in power at all levels of government for decades, and the Welsh NHS is practically non-functional.

Personally, I think an ordered transition to something like every other European country has (a mix of very basic public healthcare and various levels of private healthcare) is the best way forwards.

The need to avoid overloading the system exists regardless of whether it’s public, private, or a mixture of the two. Just look at New York and India for examples from very different cultures and political systems.

Edit: not to mention Italy’s early example also

Would you be surprised to learn that the NHS is cheaper (both in terms of cost per person treated and as a proportion of GDP) than the healthcare systems of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Japan? Its also way, way cheaper than what they have in the USA but I guess that isn't surprising.

Basically every comparable country has a more expensive healthcare system than the NHS. The NHS is incredibly efficient (or systematically underfunded, take your pick).

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

Yes, and it shows. Anything other than critical or emergency care is of a distinctly lower grade. I thought it would be a fun idea to do "healthcare tourism", where I fly in people from other countries to experience nationalised healthcare. US citizens in particular would be horrified.

It sounds like you should be voting for parties that want to put more funding into the NHS then, right? Its both way cheaper than its "competition" (healthcare in other countries) and apparently lower grade than you want?

To me it sounds like there is a super simple answer to that - don't vote tory.

The NHS is a money pit, with endless layers of middle managers and expensive consultants leeching off the system. I don't think that pouring more money into it will fix anything. I think it currently offers terrible value for money, when you take into account the general quality of healthcare you receive at all stages of your life. Do you have a niggling pain, sports injury, or condition that turns you from a fit active person into someone who can only perform average daily tasks? Tough, you have to wait until it's a real problem.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/28/nhs-manager-allo...

Edit: and to your "don't vote Tory" point - as I've already said, I live in a place (Wales) where the Labour party has controlled the Welsh NHS for decades, and we enjoy about the worst healthcare in Europe.

The NHS provides very comparable treatment to France and Germany in my experience, given that it is cheaper than both do you have any evidence to back up your claim that it is worse value for money?

I have also lived in Poland for a time, believe me if you think Wales is close to the worst healthcare in Europe you are blinded by your privilege.

I think you and I are used to different standards of evidence. I provided you the statistics showing you that the NHS is cheaper than any G7 country except Italy (which has substantially worse outcomes) you provide me with one guy living in Marabella. You see how I find the first more convincing?

Edit: to address your last point, the government in Wales is pretty much a function of the money they get from Westminster.

I can't speak to your personal experience, but picking on Germany - for a relatively small incrase in GDP spending on healthcare (11.7%, compared to the UK's 10%), Germany has three doctors per 1000 population. The UK has two. Germany has three times as many hospital beds compared to the UK. France has fairly similar numbers to Germany.

50% more doctors, and 3x the number of beds - I'd call that a whole lot better.

It's not deniable that the NHS is "cheaper", and I have not tried to do so. I am saying that the quality of care is not sufficient, and may even be less efficient than other (more expensive) healthcare systems.

Edit: The Euro Health Consumer Index puts UK healthcare at 16th out of 35, putting it below all of the "tier one" countries in the EU. You certainly can't argue that the NHS is providing comparable healthcare to countries like France and Germany, for a lower price.

As for the "Wales can only spend what Westminster gives them" argument - the Barnett formula assumes that the average taxable income to the government per head is the same across the UK. As this is not true, it actually results in relatively more tax revenue going to the nations (like Wales) than the taxes those nations raise, per capita (yes, I know you can make arguments about which expenses the central government defines as "local" and "national" spending, etc etc). Welsh Labour has squandered huge amounts of this money. If anything, I am in support of each nation only having access to the tax revenue that it generates, as that would very starkly show just how under-performing the Welsh economy is (and I say this because I want it to be better. Knowing what the problem is is the first step to fixing it.).

Bullshit.

We hear this all the time about education in the US. "Oh, we just don't fund it enough because of those eevviiill Republicans!"

There's plenty of money. It's just poorly spent.

The UK spends less per capita on healthcare than almost any other G7 nation (except Italy) [1], while maintaining a good standard of care [2]. That suggests that compared to other countries:

1. There isn't plenty of money

2. It's spent quite effectively

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

[2] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/articles/big-elect...

Bullshit.

We hear this all the time about stuff happening outside the USA. "oh x can't be happening because its different to my super-narrow experience of one country that I've randomly decided is universal".

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