Yessiree that UK socialized medicine is great!

[Seth]

I'll just leave this here

I doubt that would make any difference to Seth. Regardless of the cost per person and efficiency of socialised medicine, it's still stealing out of somebody else's paycheck.

It's very nice to know that true libertarians are a tiny and irrelevant minority...

Noisy, though...

Said the tiny and irrelevant minority of Atheists.

[Hermit]

I'll just leave this here

I doubt that would make any difference to Seth. Regardless of the cost per person and efficiency of socialised medicine, it's still stealing out of somebody else's paycheck.

It's very nice to know that true libertarians are a tiny and irrelevant minority...

Noisy, though...

Said the tiny and irrelevant minority of Atheists.

Perhaps atheists are a tiny minority in less advanced countries, but 26% of Australians do not subscribe to any religion. That is definitely not a tiny minority.

[Seth]

I'll just leave this here

I doubt that would make any difference to Seth. Regardless of the cost per person and efficiency of socialised medicine, it's still stealing out of somebody else's paycheck.

It's very nice to know that true libertarians are a tiny and irrelevant minority...

Noisy, though...

Said the tiny and irrelevant minority of Atheists.

Perhaps atheists are a tiny minority in less advanced countries, but 26% of Australians do not subscribe to any religion. That is definitely not a tiny minority.

Sure it is, compared to the 80% of people worldwide who believe in some deity or other.

A confederacy of dunces may comprise the total population of the confederacy, but they are still dunces.

[Hermit]

It's very nice to know that true libertarians are a tiny and irrelevant minority...

Noisy, though...

Said the tiny and irrelevant minority of Atheists.

Perhaps atheists are a tiny minority in less advanced countries, but 26% of Australians do not subscribe to any religion. That is definitely not a tiny minority.

Sure it is, compared to the 80% of people worldwide who believe in some deity or other.

A confederacy of dunces may comprise the total population of the confederacy, but they are still dunces.

If you regard 20% a tiny minority, I wonder how you would describe the percentage of people that subscribes to libertarianism.

[JimC]

It's very nice to know that true libertarians are a tiny and irrelevant minority...

Noisy, though...

Said the tiny and irrelevant minority of Atheists.

Perhaps atheists are a tiny minority in less advanced countries, but 26% of Australians do not subscribe to any religion. That is definitely not a tiny minority.

Sure it is, compared to the 80% of people worldwide who believe in some deity or other.

A confederacy of dunces may comprise the total population of the confederacy, but they are still dunces.

If you regard 20% a tiny minority, I wonder how you would describe the percentage of people that subscribes to libertarianism.

Possibly a hundred times less, I suspect...

Around 0.2% is probably generous...

Although higher in the US, of course - and we all know that anything outside the land of the free is best ignored...

[MrJonno]

I'm certainly no oppressed minority, atheists and those who couldn't care less about religion are in a clear majority here.

Quite happy to say i'm working towards the extermination of Christianity as an ideology, probably another 1-2 generations but i have no doubt people's grandchildren will look at christianity in the same way as they look at the greek and roman myths, a lot of scary and sometimes cool stories nothing else

Trying to actually remember the last time I met anyone who actually went to church outside funerals must be many years

[pErvinalia]

I'll just leave this here

I doubt that would make any difference to Seth. Regardless of the cost per person and efficiency of socialised medicine, it's still stealing out of somebody else's paycheck.

It's very nice to know that true libertarians are a tiny and irrelevant minority...

Noisy, though...

Said the tiny and irrelevant minority of Atheists.

Perhaps atheists are a tiny minority in less advanced countries, but 26% of Australians do not subscribe to any religion. That is definitely not a tiny minority.

What does atheism have to do with this debate??

[MrJonno]

socialists are all evil atheists (even through socialism has a very strong Christian root, you can of course argue that the fictional character Jesus was a socialist but his socialist followers in the 19th century certainly were)

[piscator]

A confederacy of dunces may comprise the total population of the confederacy, but they are still dunces.

At least Ignatius J. Reilly eventually got laid...

[JimC]

socialists are all evil atheists (even through socialism has a very strong Christian root, you can of course argue that the fictional character Jesus was a socialist but his socialist followers in the 19th century certainly were)

Yes, but are all evil atheists socialist?

And are all evil socialists atheist?

My head hurts...

[MrJonno]

Yes, but are all evil atheists socialist?

And are all evil socialists atheist?

You of course get evil atheists like Seth who are clearly not socialists except when living on state subsidies in the most government controlled 'industry' on the planet ie farming

[Seth]

UK Systematically Denies Surgery to Seniors
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by Chriss W. Street 5 Jul 2014, 6:27 AM PDT post a comment
Royal College of Surgeons issued a report that the British National Health Services (NHS) is denying life-saving operations because of age discrimination in defiance of the law. New data documents for the first time that across large areas of the United Kingdom no patients above the age of 75 are “receiving surgery for breast cancer or routine operations such as gall bladder removal and knee replacements.”

Under the British socialized medicine system, a national board called NICE has made financial decisions regarding healthcare access that assigns less value to treating seniors.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance and advice to supposedly improve health and social care in the UK. Because of budget considerations, NICE issued a report on May 6, 2005 that “patients could be denied certain health treatments because of their age.”

The report caused an uproar at the time. Jonathan Ellis, health policy manager at the “Age Concern” charity, said: “To suggest that anyone should receive less care and attention simply because they happen to be older is blatant discrimination.” He added that about 80% of physicians in general practice now believed there is discrimination against older people within the NHS system. "It also runs contrary to the government's stated aim of tackling the prejudice against older people that exists in health care services,” he stated.

Tim Kelsey, director for patients and information at NHS England, the central body in charge of the provision of healthcare services, reported on July 6, 2013 that, “We are about to run out of cash in a very serious fashion.” NHS England projected that NHS would be facing a $56 billion annual funding gap by 2020. Senior NHS doctors and managers said the system was considering closing 20 hospitals across the country.

The 144 separate local councils in England that administer the NHS collectively spent $23.5 billion last year for “adult social care” on the 11 million people 65 years or older in the UK. That population is expected to grow by about 250,000 per year thru 2050.

The London Telegraph on July 2nd quoted a confidential survey of budget chiefs for the 144 councils which showed that total spending on adult social care dropped by $458 million or 2% over the last year ending in June. The survey reveals that budgets have shrunk by 12% since the 2011 financial crisis, but the number of people needing care has risen by 13% because of an ageing UK population and an increase in the number of disabled.

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) study release on July 3rd “analyzed rates of surgery in England for six of the most common operations among different age groups. It exposes a major postcode lottery in practice across the country – with a 37-fold variation in rates of surgery for breast cancer for women aged 65 and over, depending on where they live. Hip replacements were 10 times as common in some parts of the country as others, with a 6-fold variation in rates of surgery for bowel cancer in 2011-12, the figures show.”

The RCS report found dramatic differences in council area surgery rates for those aged 65 and above. Twenty-nine council areas provided “zero surgery” for those aged 75 and over in the six categories analyzed. For beast surgery to remove cancerous tumors, there was an average of 37 per council area, and in some regional parts of the nation the numbers were “so low that they were calculated as a rate of zero” in other parts.

RCS President Professor Norman Williams said the scale of the differences was “extremely worrying,” raising suspicions that some parts of the NHS were operating covert blanket bans against procedures on age grounds. The controversy in the UK over this type of suspected “discrimination” caused the government to pass anti-age discrimination laws regarding denial of beneficial medical procedures based on age.

In response to media pressure, the British Health Secretary said: “We expect the NHS to make sure that all patients can access the treatment they need – discrimination of any kind is unacceptable.”

Acceptable or not, the British National Health Service is rapidly becoming financially insolvent. The cost of NHS now takes an average of 35% of councils’ overall budgets, up from 30% just four years ago, and the proportion is predicted to continue growing.

President Obama promised seniors that they would not suffer as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) moves to nationalize healthcare when it is fully implemented in 2015. But the UK’s experience demonstrates that nationalized care will still go bankrupt even if access to necessary surgical procedures is systematically denied to seniors.

[MrJonno]

Don't know who wrote that article but its obviously not someone knows the first thing about the UK

Acceptable or not, the British National Health Service is rapidly becoming financially insolvent. The cost of NHS now takes an average of 35% of councils’ overall budgets, up from 30% just four years ago, and the proportion is predicted to continue growing.

So many things wrong in just that sentence along

There is no 'British' NHS all the regions are entirely separate. The 35% of council budget, well I tell you what % of the budget the NHS takes up its 0% and always has been. The NHS is paid for by central taxation. In fact local government has absolutely nothing to do with health care whatsoever

Where there definitely is a problem is in non-medical care care for the elderly which is nothing to with the NHS , care homes are almost always private , run for large profits employing low skilled minimum wage people. Solutions for that are going to have been massive culture change where people will be expected to sell their homes and downsize when they retire not try to leave their houses to their children which quite possibly high financial penalties if you don't or as the Conservatives have suggested a compulsory inheritance tax regardless of the worth of your assets (ie no allowance).

Cancer treatment for the elderly is a difficult one not mainly because of money but because of the chances of success. My wife gran is 95 and is being treated for skin cancer. They cut it away with a local anaesthetic but if more than that was required it almost certainly would NOT happen. Chemotherapy/radiation/general anaesthetic + 95 year olds don't lead to good outcomes.

My mother who is elderly also has a very slow growing cancer (type of leukaemia), she also has a lot of other health issues and any treatment would seriously compromise her quality of life without much chance of extending it, ie she will almost certainly die of something else long before the cancer becomes an issue. That decision was made by a panel of doctors/nurses/social workers the same panel you will see in any first world hospital even the US. You can call it a death panel , or a cancer care panel doesnt really matter its how decent medicine work

As for overall NHS budget we spend about half what the US does on medical care and have similar or better results in most cases. Maybe we should spend more , maybe should scrap a couple of aircraft carriers, maybe we should increase taxation lots of maybes like all politics

[Hermit]

Don't know who wrote that article but its obviously not someone knows the first thing about the UK

It's author (who helped set up Huffington Post) [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chriss-street/]is described by Huffington Post as "a highly regarded radio talk show host, author, college professor, entrepreneur, and former investment manager with deep expertise in investment banking, change management, corporate restructuring and public policy economics." The article[/url] is published by Breitbart.com. Deep expertise in investment banking and corporate restructuring automatically makes one a guru to right wing nutters.

[MrJonno]

Generally for most links, I go to the link. Look for 'who were are' or 'about' the if link contains has 'freedom' , 'liberty', republic or any variation completely ignore it