[michaelt]

There's facing bankruptcy and there's facing bankruptcy. The government devolves responsibility for these things to local groups (to cut management overhead and let them respond to local needs | to transfer blame for under-funding away from elected MPs who set funding levels) and there are usually some local groups who report not having enough money (because the unaccountable bureaucrats are wasteful with other people's money | because threatening bankruptcy gets you more money and community support | because the government sets the funding levels to force them to find efficiency savings and not every local group can | because the government wants public sector failures they can point to in support of privatisation).

In practice the hospitals stay open, and patients get their drugs and operations. Reports of impending doom are just politics as usual.

[JHSheridan]

I disagree. Facing bankruptcy is facing bankruptcy. Politicians can make it sound as complicated as they like, but at the end of the day, if you owe a man $20, you're going to have to pay him. It doesn't really matter who is at fault.

I don't know enough about the NHS to say with any certainty, but I imagine the way the hospitals stay open and patients get their drugs is by the NHS going into more debt (please correct me if I'm wrong).

There's a difference between impending doom not existing and kicking the can down the road. Ultimately, the taxpayers will end up paying the debt. The question is when.

[grey-area]

The NHS is not set up to make money, it is set up to spend it. You appear to think it is some kind of profit making enterprise - it is a way of spending taxpayers money to safeguard their health, and does so in a demonstrably more efficient manner than private healthcare systems based on insurance, despite any flaws it may have. Compare costs with the US for example.

Clearly it will never turn a profit in pounds and pence, only in lives saved. Talking of bankruptcy in that context is a nonsense introduced by politicians intent on doing away with it for ideological reasons.

[JHSheridan]

Whether or not private companies can provide better health care than public institutions is an entirely different argument, and was not one I was trying to make.

Bankruptcy has nothing to do with whether an organization is for-profit or not. It has to do with whether it can pay its debts or not.

Trying to figure out how to pay for things you can't afford isn't nonsense. Believing government institutions are exempt from debt is.

No matter how valuable a service is, someone must pay for it. Saving lives is a wonderful thing, but doctors still want to be paid.

[grey-area]

It has to do with whether it can pay its debts or not.

The NHS does not have debt in any meaningful sense, the government takes on debt, and chooses to spend some of that on new missile systems, some on wars in foreign countries, some on education, and some on the NHS.

A part of government cannot be bankrupt without the entire government itself being bankrupt, because it is funded as part of government obligations, and the amount given to it is decided almost entirely on the whim of politicians - it varies considerably and depends on all the other expenditures. You might argue that the UK as a whole is borrowing against its future rather than paying down debts (and it is currently as many countries do), but to argue that the NHS is somehow in debt or in danger of bankruptcy simply doesn't make sense when it is part of a variable budget paid for with taxes and borrowing.

You might claim the UK can't afford the NHS, but I'd point to the other parts of the budget which consume considerably more money, and compare it to the spending of other countries - that's a very different discussion, and a valid one to have, but it's not one you can have on the basis of the NHS somehow being bankrupt as compared to an arbitrary budget set by politicians with an agenda.

[mortyseinfeld]

Talking of bankruptcy in that context is a nonsense introduced by politicians intent on doing away with it for ideological reasons.

And that comment is a perfect example why we still have people on HN saying things like "free" healthcare. But at the end of the day it all costs money. It's just this make-believe world that some people want to live in...amazing.

[grey-area]

Are you saying any part of my comment was make-believe? If so please let me know which part, instead of struggling with a straw man of your own invention.

Of course it costs money, and that money comes from taxes and borrowing as does the money for the MOD, MOE, and all other state funded services.

[michaeldhopkins]

He quoted part of your post directly and responded to it. It was this part: "Talking of bankruptcy in that context is a nonsense introduced by politicians intent on doing away with it for ideological reasons."

I'm just explaining to you that he quoted you since you were unsure.

[grey-area]

He quoted me, then proceeded on a tangent completely unrelated to it, about free health care which doesn't cost money, and a make-believe world which apparently I want to live in.

I have trouble relating the quote with his arguments, because I said nothing about 'free' healthcare, things which don't cost money, or something make believe. If anything a bankruptcy in a centrally funded department involves make-believe, because it implies that there is no more money; it's a question of priorities and what you want to spend the budget on, and much money has been found for other projects by HMG during this recession alone, for example bank bailouts, wars abroad or tax cuts.