Post by Pacifico on Feb 13, 2024 22:31:42 GMT
Feb 13, 2024 19:54:43 GMT @srb7677 said:
But every year we are able to treat more diseases.
The two new drugs slow the effects of Alzheimer's, but both need expensive testing and treatments.
would you may more NI to get these drugs when you need them?
What I do have is a progressive condition - Parkinsons Disease - on top of my pre-existing diabetes. I am going to be an increasing burden upon the NHS in the coming years. I would be happy to pay more if I could yet have had to drastically cut my hours for medical reasons, so am struggling financially.
I have been used to being a net contributor to society. No kids that needed educating, paying all my taxes whilst claiming nothing.
Sadly circumstances leave me in a situation where I am now a net taker rather than net giver, but none of us know when such a situation might arise in any of our lives. We are all only one serious medical diagnosis away from such a situation, and the odds against us increase with age.
The cost of the NHS is soaring because of new expensive medications and an ageing population. Unless we accept a rather poor health service whose bottom line would mean thousands dying who might have been saved with better treatment, somehow a means of funding the healthcare we want in an affordable, equitable and fair way needs to be found, and an NHS structure created which does not waste shedloads of money as at present.
This is all easy to say but difficult to do, not helped by ideological assumptions on both left and right. Either private bad and public good, or public bad and private good being the starting point ideological assumptions, when what we really need is what works rather than what ticks either left wing or right wing ideological boxes.
I don't disagree but we have moved beyond that. There cannot be any discussion about what works as the NHS has now been elevated to be the State Religion - any changes to the present model of healthcare are never going to be contemplated simply because a large proportion of the population have convinced themselves that the NHS is the only system in the world that works.
With real change and reform off the table all you are left with is the situation we have been in for the past 80 years - the NHS lurching from one financial crisis to another and the public will simply have to put up with whatever service is delivered - good or bad.
