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by dash2 319 days ago
It's easier to see your own society's faults. The NHS also has waste, most obviously the deadweight loss caused by queuing. I know someone who went back to get treated to her own country. Not remarkable except that country was Ukraine.
2 comments
eru 318 days ago
> It's easier to see your own society's faults.

Neither the US, UK or France are my own society.

I lived in the UK for a few years on and off. I agree that rationing by queuing is less efficient than rationing by money. Singapore does a much better job: they always have a co-payment (even if that's often that just for symbolic/ideologic reasons, and less so for rationing).

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bugglebeetle 319 days ago
Yes, because the UK’s two dominant (and right wing) parties have been actively sabotaging it for years, chasing after a despicable dream of homegrown middlemen and fraudsters, envious as they are of the unchecked criminality of their friends from across the pond. Quelle surprise, things have gotten worse.
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dash2 319 days ago
Spending grew about 8% a year under New Labour on average, which doesn't seem like sabotage to me.
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eru 319 days ago
Also if both dominant political parties are supposedly so against the NHS, why don't they just abolish it?
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HPsquared 319 days ago
They need to be sneaky. Same with a lot of other unpopular policies which nevertheless (somehow...) have support from "both sides".
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tremon 319 days ago
They need the public to (nominally) assent to it first, otherwise it'd be suicide. They're using the republican playbook: overburden the sector with tasks and regulations while underfunding it, and allow for private competition that is not subject to the same regulatory burden. Then in a decade or so, you can claim that the "free market" works better and the public won't kick up too much of a fuss.
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eru 318 days ago
That seems like a weird conspiracy. Why would the parties secretly want to do something that the voters don't like? Are they not power-hungry?

By the way, how is that the republican playbook? What does any of this have to do with the desire to remove King Charles as the head of government? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_Ki...

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