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The NHS is just a government department run by the UK Health Minister. Always point the finger at the person holding the purse strings and the person controllin

The NHS is just a government department run by the UK Health Minister. Always point the finger at the person holding the purse strings and the person controlling the laws and policies. The best time to start training more doctors and nurses is ten years ago. The second best time is today.

aww_dang 4y ago
If only there were a decentralized system where consumers and service providers could allocate resources according to their value preferences by providing voluntary incentives.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  You mean like in the US, where half a million people are bankrupted by health care costs every year?
  - aww_dang 4y ago
    >According to the World Health Organization, US per capita government spending on health care is the fourth highest in the world. https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-market-health-care-system-is-pure-fantasy/ https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-mar...
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    There's a lot of regulatory capture going on there. It's not exactly a free market.
    - gmac 4y ago
      You don't want it to be a free market. People who need urgent health interventions are not ordinary rational consumers. They may not even be conscious. Combine this with providers incentivised to provide as much healthcare as possible at the highest possible markup, and insurers incentivised to deny as much care as they can ... and you have what always looks (from the other side of the Atlantic) like a gigantic life-and-death financial nightmare.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  And that can be manipulated by the limited elasticity of the system together with a good lack of transparency and competition?
- smcl 4y ago
  You're referring to the US system of private insurers and healthcare providers which leaves millions without any access to healthcare and can result in bankruptcy as a result of an illness or accident? And which costs more per-capita for worse outcomes? I'll take an adequately funded NHS, thanks.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Pretty sure that is NOT what the parent comment was talking about. The US system has all the problems of a government run health system (which it basically is at this point) but none of the benefits. There are absolutely zero market dynamics at play in the US Health system any more. >> leaves millions without any access to healthcare Absolutely, 100% completely false. >>can result in bankruptcy as a result of an illness or accident This is true, however contrary to the social stigma bankruptcy can be a good thing for many. In the US Medial Bankruptcy is often made inevitable by various government regulations that prohibit creative solutions by providers.
    - jnovek 4y ago
      “Absolutely, 100% completely false.” Perhaps virtually everyone has access to health care, but certainly millions opt out at the cost of their own well-being because they can’t afford it. There have been times in my life when I have.
      - phpisthebest 4y ago
        People opt-out for a wide range of reasons, Take myself as an example. I largely opt out of care even though I have great insurance, and ample resources to afford it even if insurance did not cover it. My reasons for opting out have nothing to do with finances, it would get exactly the same amount of care if it was free.
        Clent 4y ago
        30 million American have no health coverage. The common refrain is that they can go to a hospital, except an emergency room is not going to help chronic conditions. Any idea that a majority of these people are choosing to have no coverage, goes against all research on this topic.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Given that the US healthcare system is similarly failing, I wouldn't be so snarky.
- fragmede 4y ago
  The NHS pays doctors in money. It's not communism.
  - aww_dang 4y ago
    >The best time to start training more doctors and nurses is ten years ago. The second best time is today. The comment seemed to be observing a failure in resource (medical professionals) allocation on the part of the central planners. We don't need to get into the weeds of what is communism or neoliberal third-positionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
    - pineaux 4y ago
      Fascists are very often proponents of "the third way". Not saying you are a fascist, just adding some context to this. A little guilt by association. I think the problem with the "third way" and with "communism" vs "neo-liberalism" is that they are all not focused on anything it's just a way to create a new "tribe". Conservation of Nature and worries about environmental decline used to be an elitist right wing conservative topic. Now its a leftist topic. Its not really about the topics, its about drawing lines in the sand and saying: "We from the left/right/third way, stand firmly behind this line! Who is with us?" It is just a way to define a group that can be used to gain power.
      - aww_dang 4y ago
        It is easier to distinguish between laissez-faire and the ideologies you listed. For me this seems to be a more meaningful distinction. Especially as it relates to the topic at hand. Central planning comes into play where the market is not allocating resources. Fallible men with imperfect information vs. aggregated price information.
    - spiralx 4y ago
      GPs in the UK are private businesses and always have been lol.
- alignItems 4y ago
  Life expectancy in the USA is significantly shorter than other first world countries with national health systems.
- pineaux 4y ago
  Decentralised systems have a horrible truth: they tend not to optimize for the problem they are set up for but for the thing that creates the greatest feedback loop. In case of a healthcare system inside a capitalist society, the system will optimise for profit maximalisation, this automatically means that a large group is cut out of care because: 1) they require too much care 2) they cannot bring enough money to the table Its a simple fact of how markets work. A free market is just an ideal, just like democracy, open borders and justice. It is not some law of the universe. In fact: countries that profit most of their markets are countries that highly regulate them. These countries include the US, China, South Korea, Zwitserland, Norway and Dubai. But not: Mozambique, Venezuela, Sudan, Russia, Haïti. <-- these countries dont have functioning markets because there is too much unregulated behavior, too much corruption.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Wait you are honestly claiming that Venezuela is captialist nation? Really? The once shining example of Socialism that has now collapsed as socialism always does is "capitalist" now that it has failed? that is rich right there. Russia is more or less the same... A Collapsed socialist state that never really adopted free markets, sure they adopted some aspects of capitalism but only because after the inevitable collapse of socialist policies the people in power divided up all everything of value between themselves and their friends. That is not capitalism either.
    - orwin 4y ago
      Capitalism have nothing to do with free market, unless it changed meaning again?
      - phpisthebest 4y ago
        Colloquial they are analogous in most conversations, used interchangeably in informal conversation
        orwin 4y ago
phpisthebest 4y ago
I always love that the solution to all government failings is simply spending more tax dollars or incurring more debt....
- dijit 4y ago
  Putting back the percentage of GDP that has been deallocated for the NHS would go a long way to solving the issues that were caused by the deallocation. That seems pretty uncontroversial. There is, however, a large contingent of private companies profiteering from this situation; as the NHS was forced to buy things from private hands. More money will not fix this mandated profiteering.
- badcppdev 4y ago
  Do you think we should have more doctors in the UK? You are aware of the bottlenecks preventing that from happening? Do you think that it's just a question of money?

aww_dang 4y ago

If only there were a decentralized system where consumers and service providers could allocate resources according to their value preferences by providing voluntary incentives.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
You mean like in the US, where half a million people are bankrupted by health care costs every year?
- aww_dang 4y ago
  >According to the World Health Organization, US per capita government spending on health care is the fourth highest in the world. https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-market-health-care-system-is-pure-fantasy/ https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-mar...
- HPsquared 4y ago
  There's a lot of regulatory capture going on there. It's not exactly a free market.
  - gmac 4y ago
    You don't want it to be a free market. People who need urgent health interventions are not ordinary rational consumers. They may not even be conscious. Combine this with providers incentivised to provide as much healthcare as possible at the highest possible markup, and insurers incentivised to deny as much care as they can ... and you have what always looks (from the other side of the Atlantic) like a gigantic life-and-death financial nightmare.
raverbashing 4y ago
And that can be manipulated by the limited elasticity of the system together with a good lack of transparency and competition?
smcl 4y ago
You're referring to the US system of private insurers and healthcare providers which leaves millions without any access to healthcare and can result in bankruptcy as a result of an illness or accident? And which costs more per-capita for worse outcomes? I'll take an adequately funded NHS, thanks.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Pretty sure that is NOT what the parent comment was talking about. The US system has all the problems of a government run health system (which it basically is at this point) but none of the benefits. There are absolutely zero market dynamics at play in the US Health system any more. >> leaves millions without any access to healthcare Absolutely, 100% completely false. >>can result in bankruptcy as a result of an illness or accident This is true, however contrary to the social stigma bankruptcy can be a good thing for many. In the US Medial Bankruptcy is often made inevitable by various government regulations that prohibit creative solutions by providers.
  - jnovek 4y ago
    “Absolutely, 100% completely false.” Perhaps virtually everyone has access to health care, but certainly millions opt out at the cost of their own well-being because they can’t afford it. There have been times in my life when I have.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      People opt-out for a wide range of reasons, Take myself as an example. I largely opt out of care even though I have great insurance, and ample resources to afford it even if insurance did not cover it. My reasons for opting out have nothing to do with finances, it would get exactly the same amount of care if it was free.
      - Clent 4y ago
        30 million American have no health coverage. The common refrain is that they can go to a hospital, except an emergency room is not going to help chronic conditions. Any idea that a majority of these people are choosing to have no coverage, goes against all research on this topic.
fragmede 4y ago
Given that the US healthcare system is similarly failing, I wouldn't be so snarky.
fragmede 4y ago
The NHS pays doctors in money. It's not communism.
- aww_dang 4y ago
  >The best time to start training more doctors and nurses is ten years ago. The second best time is today. The comment seemed to be observing a failure in resource (medical professionals) allocation on the part of the central planners. We don't need to get into the weeds of what is communism or neoliberal third-positionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
  - pineaux 4y ago
    Fascists are very often proponents of "the third way". Not saying you are a fascist, just adding some context to this. A little guilt by association. I think the problem with the "third way" and with "communism" vs "neo-liberalism" is that they are all not focused on anything it's just a way to create a new "tribe". Conservation of Nature and worries about environmental decline used to be an elitist right wing conservative topic. Now its a leftist topic. Its not really about the topics, its about drawing lines in the sand and saying: "We from the left/right/third way, stand firmly behind this line! Who is with us?" It is just a way to define a group that can be used to gain power.
    - aww_dang 4y ago
      It is easier to distinguish between laissez-faire and the ideologies you listed. For me this seems to be a more meaningful distinction. Especially as it relates to the topic at hand. Central planning comes into play where the market is not allocating resources. Fallible men with imperfect information vs. aggregated price information.
  - spiralx 4y ago
    GPs in the UK are private businesses and always have been lol.
alignItems 4y ago
Life expectancy in the USA is significantly shorter than other first world countries with national health systems.
pineaux 4y ago
Decentralised systems have a horrible truth: they tend not to optimize for the problem they are set up for but for the thing that creates the greatest feedback loop. In case of a healthcare system inside a capitalist society, the system will optimise for profit maximalisation, this automatically means that a large group is cut out of care because: 1) they require too much care 2) they cannot bring enough money to the table Its a simple fact of how markets work. A free market is just an ideal, just like democracy, open borders and justice. It is not some law of the universe. In fact: countries that profit most of their markets are countries that highly regulate them. These countries include the US, China, South Korea, Zwitserland, Norway and Dubai. But not: Mozambique, Venezuela, Sudan, Russia, Haïti. <-- these countries dont have functioning markets because there is too much unregulated behavior, too much corruption.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Wait you are honestly claiming that Venezuela is captialist nation? Really? The once shining example of Socialism that has now collapsed as socialism always does is "capitalist" now that it has failed? that is rich right there. Russia is more or less the same... A Collapsed socialist state that never really adopted free markets, sure they adopted some aspects of capitalism but only because after the inevitable collapse of socialist policies the people in power divided up all everything of value between themselves and their friends. That is not capitalism either.
  - orwin 4y ago
    Capitalism have nothing to do with free market, unless it changed meaning again?
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      Colloquial they are analogous in most conversations, used interchangeably in informal conversation
      - orwin 4y ago

phpisthebest 4y ago

I always love that the solution to all government failings is simply spending more tax dollars or incurring more debt....

dijit 4y ago
Putting back the percentage of GDP that has been deallocated for the NHS would go a long way to solving the issues that were caused by the deallocation. That seems pretty uncontroversial. There is, however, a large contingent of private companies profiteering from this situation; as the NHS was forced to buy things from private hands. More money will not fix this mandated profiteering.
badcppdev 4y ago
Do you think we should have more doctors in the UK? You are aware of the bottlenecks preventing that from happening? Do you think that it's just a question of money?