A report from the Institute of Economic Affairs, released on Tuesday, argued that the NHS was “nothing special” and the Covid-19 crisis had been used to justify “conventional wisdom” that a state-run service is the best model for public healthcare.
“There is no rational basis for the adulation the NHS is currently receiving, and no reason to be ‘grateful’ for the fact that we have it,” argued Kristian Niemietz, the think tank’s head of Health and Welfare.
“It should go without saying that if the UK did not have the NHS, it would not have no healthcare system. It would have a different healthcare system,” he wrote.
Exactly that this questions the modern religion is why there’s so much screaming about it.
“In a new report it accused politicians across the board of trying to fit the pandemic into their pre-existing world-view.”
And justify all their long-cherished hobby horses.
Expect lots of heat and very little light from people who haven’t read the report.
Let’s face it, Polly Toynbee or Zoe Williams will do their best not to understand it, even if they were able to understand it. The NHS is a force of pure, unalloyed good, and there’s an end on it. Spud is probably thumping out a piece of drivel about it right now
Good for Niemietz. Other IEA types have gone full authoritarian during this “crisis”, the worst offender is Christopher Snowdon. He advocated the forcible removal of net curtains so that police snipers can see into peoples’ houses and “take out” those not wearing masks while watching telly.
Or something.
Dio – did you mean Spud is probably pumping out a piece of seminal drivel about it right now?
Angela Rayner, still Labour’s stupidest harridan, is bringing the full weight of her confected outrage to bear and demanding Matt Hancock apologise for things that were not said in the report.
Why, in this day and age, are the IEA publishing bloody Word docx files? FFS.
And the summary isn’t the world’s greatest start.
And it’s all going so well…
Right now, we have had 58,235 reported Covid cases per million population, which is the 23rd highest in the world. Pretty poor.
However, also right now we have 1672 reported Covid deaths per million population, which is the 5th highest in the world. Only Gibralter, San Marino, Belgium and Slovenia are worse.
Let’s at least be honest about our national religion.
“And it’s all going so well…
Right now, we have had 58,235 reported Covid cases per million population, which is the 23rd highest in the world. Pretty poor.
However, also right now we have 1672 reported Covid deaths per million population, which is the 5th highest in the world. Only Gibralter, San Marino, Belgium and Slovenia are worse.
Let’s at least be honest about our national religion.”
Ah but the NHS cultists have the perfect circular answer: any successes of the NHS (pbuh) are down to its self evidence goodness, but any failings are the work of evil wreckers such as the Tories for not giving it enough ‘resources’.
You can’t argue logic with a religious cult. They’ve got all the responses off pat.
@The Meissen Bison – February 10, 2021 at 9:27 am
Dio – did you mean Spud is probably pumping out a piece of seminal drivel about it right now?
At Spud’s age it’s more likely to be seminal dribble.
The usually admirable Dr No on his Bad Medicine blog opines that “the only sensible way to fund and run a health service is to have a publicly owned and provided service paid for out of taxation.” Infection control in the NHS is notoriously lousy: evidently that includes the uncontrolled spread of utterly daft ideas.
So envious is the rest of the world of the NHS that no one has copied its model.
@AndrewC
“So envious is the rest of the world of the NHS that no one has copied its model.”
Unfortunately Ireland tried and ended up a with a public (mis)run health service, that anyone earning more than a pittance has to pay to access basic services.
There’s a teenage movement (as in not yet fully adult) in Ireland to nationalise the private hospitals. Four local authorities including Dublin City, and the nursing union have voted for it. More like declared they want it. It might happen, would be a mistake, but it will make unification an easier sell in the north if they get to keep their NHS system.
Now that we have a radio-controlled p-spot stimulator, we have no problems getting a satisfactory money shot from Stiffy Murphy
Just a note that comparing performance of countries in the pandemic is a fools errand. You have to assume that the same criteria for counting cases and deaths is applied in all places. Highly unlikely. The only reasonable measure is to compare their overall death rates, and even that is fraught with difficulties.
So, Neimietz gives us;
“Among the ‘best in class’ are the four ‘Asian Tigers’ of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong,
and to a lesser extent, Singapore. They had exceptionally low levels of Covid deaths, they
minimised the economic fallout, and they also managed to preserve personal freedoms and
a semblance of normal life.”
Today’s South China Morning Post has;
“Hong Kong national security law (NSL)
Hong Kong district councillors face disqualification if probes find them unpatriotic”
He has form for talking bollocks.
@Andrew C
So envious is the rest of the world of the NHS that only Cuba and Laos have copied its model. FTFY.
The Singapore secret may mainly have been simply to protect the “care” homes.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/02/05/understanding-singapores-covid-miracle/
I work in the NHS.
It’s shit and from experience, I can tell you, you only hear about 10% of how shit it is.
The NHS budget for this year is £149 billion – up from £114 billion in 2009-10. Allowing for inflation, this a 3% increase in real terms, so NHS cuts are a myth.
Theo,
That’s not how it works. It should have been an increase the left would have made, say 5%, so therefore there’s been a 2% cut.
Simon Wrong-Lewis does it by benchmarking how much it has grown compared to GDP. Why it should remain a stable proportion of GDP, rather than population for example, is never explained.
Diogenes,
So he accepts there should be a budget cut in recessions then?
I’m guessing not, especially when its a Tory government picking up the pieces of Labour’s mess.
“So he accepts there should be a budget cut in recessions then?”
Of course not, the methodology is to campaign for ‘no cuts’ to cash spending in a recession, but switch rapidly to ‘must maintain spending as a % of GDP’ as the economy recovers. The perfect ratchet. One assumes that one day the entire UK economy will consist of the NHS and nothing else.