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Patently stupidPatently stupidPosted Oct 19, 2012 14:32 UTC (Fri) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402)In reply to: Patently stupid by nix Parent article: The Patent, Used as a Sword (New York Times)
Sorry to dig up such an old thread - I rarely look back at my previous comments, but I have to take issue with this:
"That's true in every government-run health service I am aware of"
This is not a realistic portrayal of the UK NHS. To quote Simon Burns (no, I am no fan of his): "Our latest survey of over 70,000 patients shows that an overwhelming majority - 92% - say that their overall experience of the NHS was good, very good or excellent."
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Patently stupid Posted Oct 20, 2012 14:59 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I was trying to say that we have the option of ignoring the NHS and going private if we want to, not that the NHS isn't widely appreciated.
Patently stupid Posted Oct 23, 2012 15:44 UTC (Tue) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
Oh - perhaps I misread your and the parent's comments - do you mean you believe that the existence of a parallel private health care system actually serves to _improve_ the government health system itself?
An interesting view.
Patently stupid Posted Oct 23, 2012 17:41 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
There may be some of that, but I was looking at it from another point of view.
Any health care system that's controlled by a single entity is going to have cases where it fails badly. It may work for many common cases, but if you are in the group that it is failing badly for, you need to have the option of using a different system.
Government run systems are not exceptions to this. They work when people have the option to go elsewhere. If people do not have the option to go elsewhere, you end up with a black market in medical care (or with those with enough money flying to other countries to get care)
In the western world no government has tried to lock things down this tightly, but from stories I've heard In the communist countries things have tended to be far more locked down.
Patently stupid Posted Oct 24, 2012 16:03 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
No, I don't think that. I was arguing against the OP's claim that government healthcare only works if you have the option of taking up private healthcare too, by pointing out that since the converse case (only government healthcare permitted) does not exist anywhere, you cannot argue the point one way or the other.
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