In a speech outlining the government's plans to overhaul public services, Cameron promised to get rid of "topdown, command-and-control bureaucracy and targets." He said that with an aging population and growing demand for new medical treatments, "pretending that there is some easy option of sticking with the status quo and hoping that a little bit of extra money will smooth over the challenges is a complete fiction."
The government is due to publish details of its reforms in a Health and Social Care Bill on Wednesday.
Socialized medicine is as much an article of faith in Britain as it is a divisive flashpoint in the United States.
The health service is Britain's biggest employer, costs more than 100 billion pounds ($158 billion) a year — and is a political football, reformed and criticized by governments since it was established in 1948.
Despite the constant tinkering, no major political party proposes privatizing the health service, and even free-market politicians like Cameron go out of their way to praise it.
Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government has said health care will be spared the cuts imposed on other departments as part of a 80 billion pound ($128 billion) reduction in public spending through 2015 designed to reduce Britain's huge budget deficit — and bring the biggest overhaul in decades to public services.
On Monday Cameron said "a free NHS at the point of use, for everybody" was "part of Britain, part of Britishness."
Yes, a definition of national identity. To be British is to be entitled to being cared for humanely, as a government duty to citizens.
No less.
No mincing around that prideful sane British truth.
Moving instead to House GOP leaders looking to prove party macho and mojo.
Show time beckons.
Krugman explains:
The key to understanding the G.O.P. analysis of health reform is that the party’s leaders are not, in fact, opposed to reform because they believe it will increase the deficit. Nor are they opposed because they seriously believe that it will be “job-killing” (which it won’t be). They’re against reform because it would cover the uninsured — and that’s something they just don’t want to do.
And it’s not about the money. As I tried to explain in my last column, the modern G.O.P. has been taken over by an ideology in which the suffering of the unfortunate isn’t a proper concern of government, and alleviating that suffering at taxpayer expense is immoral, never mind how little it costs.
Given that their minds were made up from the beginning, top Republicans weren’t interested in and didn’t need any real policy analysis — in fact, they’re basically contemptuous of such analysis, something that shines through in their health care report. All they ever needed or wanted were some numbers and charts to wave at the press, fooling some people into believing that we’re having some kind of rational discussion. We aren’t.
Understand, Krugman is being kind in his assessment. If you are looking for news as moving and important as the GOP's dog-pony show, look here and here, for comparable event magnitude.
And ---- Don't blame me. I voted for Tarryl Clark.