Private, insured healthcare in the UK amounts to getting a nicer room / hospital if you have a stay in hospital and getting seen quicker. The care itself is no better and usually worse eg tests not as well controlled, same doctors, even more time pressure to kick you out early. It's about convenience certainly not quality of care.

Yes, I know that and if, heaven forbid, something goes wrong, it's the NHS that pick up the pieces.
It just allows people who want to and who have plenty of brass or, a generous employer, to queue jump.
Some of them then have the audacity to pretend that they are doing the rest of us a favour



I'm not against private medicine necessarily but, if our health service worked just a little better, and was properly funded, nobody would need it.

It's time that health and education were sorted our on a cross party basis and take the politics out of such fundamental services but, sadly, that will never happen and instead we get a continuous political "measuring" contest.

It's time that collectively, we agreed just what should be expected from the NHS and then get on and deal with it.

The primary factor for me is I get to chose the consultant I want to do the 'work'. One I can research and guarantee a high level of competence and quality. In the NHS there are a lot of trainee Drs learning and that's not happening on my knees!

That is the point my wife was in agony with gall stones which the NHS were reluctant to treat - so I suggested I had private medical insurance it was done the following week by the surgeon of our choice in a private hospital.

The surgeon said after the op there was no way my wife should had suffered for as long she had - small price to pay in my view.

Not once on here has anyone suggested what they think the NHS should offer - so let's get everyone's opinion of what should be covered by NI contributions:

For me it should basic healthcare that maintains a reasonable state of being. It should definitely cover childbirth and free health for children up to 16 including dentistry.

What it shouldn't cover: IVF, gender re-assignment, very expensive cancer treatments, vanity treatments e.g. penis increases, breast augmentation, tummy tucks etc.

It's impossible to have a reasonable discussion with you, when you start from such a ridiculous position; I'm starting to suspect you're a troll. Forget I asked.

Not at all because I don't see things your way - so I ask again what should the NHS offer?

If you want to have a sensible discussion then put your opinions out there for all to read - it isn't difficult even for you

No - because your starting position is to consign people to a life of misery and mental health problems, or a slow painful death, because they don't have the money to fund their own treatment. You are proposing to break a fundamental social contract between the government and the citizens of the UK - and I can't engage with that level of cruelty; or wind up.

NHS ,someone once said it's the only religion we have left in this country. We can never really discuss in depth the problems in the NHS ,mainly because the Labour Party scream that the tories are privatising it. The tories then panic and carry on and the system worsens year on year.
If it's so good how come most of the devolped world have different systems. It's supposed to be a uniform system, yet I know people in Sheffield who have to wait 2 weeks for a doctors appointment. Yet in my semi rural area I can usually fix up an appointment the same day. Two of our friends ,ladies over sixty years of age have had knee replacements on the NHS but undertaken at a private hospital. Everything top class and successful, yet many politicians hate this type of system. Usually because the trade unions are against this system.
The only way for the NHS to improve is a mixture of state and private funding . Another failing of the NHS is this constant bleating that it's got to be free at the point of use. Let's face it not many things in life are free, somebody down the line is paying for it. That's certainly the case with the NHS.

The UKs total spend on education is apparently the highest in proportion to GDP of top 30 world economies. Something is obviously wrong with how the money is spent though.

It s not free. It is paid for by taxation. A much better way of funding than via insurance contracts which only some people can afford or which provide a burden on business and exclude anything complicatated or expensive.

Just on a side note, did anyone see Question Time last night.
Labour shadow minister Richard Burgon trying to say that Labour was the party for the self employed and small business as they were advocating giving paternity rights to the self employed.
I was embarrassed for him, the guy has no idea what is involved in running a small business, none.

The Tory on the panel, who is happy to admit that he's loaded, at least spoke some sense, particularly about Brexit and how we would struggle to gain access to the single market and customs union outside the EU.
I dont agree with his politics but at least he seemed prepared to be up front and honest about where we're at.

The point for me is do we want a health service that is all things to all people in which everyone gets what they want when they want it or are we as nation prepared to accept some choices have to be made about certain clinical procedures.

If you want the former because that's the easy option then the funding required is a bottomless pit - however if you are prepared to accept that life isn't fair and we can't all have everything e.g. it isn't a right to get pregnant, then a properly funded NHS is possible and other taxation monies can be diverted to other equally important areas.

Those examples of mine are extreme but that was the intention those people are in the minority but some the cancer treatments are incredibly expensive for what is often a very short extension to life.

I really like Rees-Mogg. Witty, honest and decent. The Labour bloke on self-employed was cringeworthy. I think he was getting mixed up with rights for couriers, Uber drivers and thx like who are deemed self-employed when not really? Otherwise his 'real world' of Leeds must be an odd place.

We already have that - so the fundamental premise of your proposition is erroneous.

You originally stated the NHS was inefficient - hence the financial difficulties; you now seem to be suggesting that the problem is caused by the undeserving poor expecting help with fertility or cancer?

And I'm willing to wager that you wouldn't have entertained these thoughts earlier in your career, when you didn't have private health insurance.

Check his voting record - he's another entitled Eton boy, with no regard for the working classes; his affable posh twit routine is as sinister as that of Boris Johnson.

AS I said, I dont agree with his politics but at least he appeared to be talking sense, unlike his Labour counterpart and was happy to say that he was sufficiently well off not to need the 10% increase that MP's were given and so didnt take the "extra", whereas Burgon, despite claiming socialist values, clearly did take the "extra", knowing that it was fundamentally wrong.

But one of them voted to maintain the pay freeze on public sector workers - and guffawed and jeered when it went through; the other continues to campaign for it to be lifted. One of them lectured about the evils of debt and blamed it on Labour, despite representing the party which has tripled it in 7 years - then went on to say that it was perfectly ok to saddle students with 50k+ of debt; the other represents a party who would abolish student fees.

Hopefully, not everyone is as easily swayed as you by a meaningless soundbite or an amusingly anachronistic turn of phrase.

I think that you are misunderstanding me.
As I said, I dont agree with his politics but he did appear to be speaking honestly.

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum our MP's reside, it would be a whole lot better if they tell people what they actually think and what their principles are, rather than saying one thing and then doing the opposite and this is the reason that I liked listening to the guy, particularly his comments on hard Brexit and soft Brexit. Again, I dont agree with him but, it made a change for someone to speak plainly as to why some of the "softer" Brexit options
are just not possible.

FWIW, I like Corbyn for the same reasons, in that he speaks plainly and has belief in his own ideals.
Again, I have major issues with his spending plans, as I dont believe that they are achievable with the slight changes to personal tax changes to the wealthiest members of society and his changes to CT are just wishful thinking.
There isn't a business in the country that will just accept the changes to CT, without changing the shape of their business, to reduce the burden of CT.

a bit rich coming from Corbyn's fanboy

To remove any traces of gravitas hidden within your meaningless one-liners, you have added a laughing face emoji; well done.

The sooner this lady goes the better - she is now making a laughing stock out of herself.

The Tories will not put up with this for long - gone by the end of the summer

The only way she can retain any dignity or credibility, and fend off some of her would be assassins, is to go on TV and say that Brexit was in fact a really stupid idea, and she's not supporting it any more; she's a dead woman walking anyway, so she should at least do one decent and honest thing before she's euthanised.

Is her plea to other parties a genuine call for help or is she just lining up stooges to split the blame with should it all go wrong?

Whatever it is it's pointless. She's holed under the waterline. Nobody will do business with her. She's just serving her notice.