TrinityIHC wrote:They have mentioned giving people the option to opt out of the NHS if they wish to pay private medical insurance and not pay the NHS element of their national insurance. Hardly privatising it, which both Labour and the Tories have made great inroads in to doing anyway (PFI's etc)
Its back-of-a-beer-mat policies like that that make most party manifesto's a joke.
Its a great soundbite, give the population a choice, buy some private health insurance with the tax you pay for the NHS, never have to wait in a queue again, always have the very latest and best treatments from the elite staff employed in private healthcare, sounds good doesn't it ?
(BTW, those claims were made in a leaflet I received from Aviva Healthcare this very morning)
But it won't work.
It won't work because you can't buy a private healthcare policy that offers you unlimited care and treatment for any and all incidences that are ever likely to affect or infect a human being, for the same price that you will be paying towards the NHS in tax - I'll give you a starter for ten, which private hospital will send out a paramedic and a separate ambulance with two medics on board when you get hit by a bus ?
It won't work because you can't buy a private health insurance policy that doesn't get more expensive the older you get, private health insurance is not there to offer you healthcare from cradle to grave, its there to make a profit for its shareholders and the more risk you are the more they will charge you, which isn't an issue if you are 25, employed, single, fit and healthy, but try and get a quote when you're 40, married with dependants, overweight (according to their charts) and in a risk group for diabetes - you may be surprised at how their advertising blurb doesn't quite match their attitude towards you as a high risk client.
It won't work because you can't just ignore the vast majority of the population that remains when the private health insurers have cherry picked all of the low risk high earners, who will provide healthcare for the retired, the under 18's, the unemployed, the disabled, etc, etc, etc - the answer is of course the NHS who will be faced with lower income streams because of the diversion of tax away from them and a higher percentage of clients needing their valuable treatment.
See, that only took five minutes of thinking the manifesto policy through to its obvious conclusion so you do wonder who the hell writes this stuff for the political party's and whether or not in UKIP's case they all got too p1ssed with Farage in the chair that night to actually put any thought into their published web site promises.