
Stephen Hawking: I'm Worried about the Future of the NHS - JohnHammersley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40967309
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andy_ppp
“...if you can defund it, it won't be in good shape. And there is a standard
technique of privatization, namely defund what you want to privatize. Like
when Thatcher wanted to defund the railroads, first thing to do is defund
them, then they don't work and people get angry and they want a change. You
say okay, privatize them and then they get worse.” - Noam Chomsky

This is 100% the case with the UKs rail system, and our national health
service is being underfunded at and amazing rate. I always think Jeremy Hunt
looks like he’s just received a particularly distressing colonoscopy which I
suppose is why he hates doctors and nurses so much.

NHS costs less than half the cost of the American system for similar outcomes
and it worked really really well when funded at the level of other European
countries under the last Labour government.

~~~
jandrewrogers
I wouldn't call outcomes similar in terms of disease survival rates, British
medical journals have spent quite a few words on this very topic. For example,
cancer survival rates are 50% higher in the US than NHS, as reported in
Lancet. That is worse than much of Europe. You see similar deltas for
cardiovascular disease treatment outcomes.

Metrics like average lifespan are not that correlated with survival rates from
medical diseases. Switzerland or France are where you want to be in Europe if
the goal is to survive serious medical conditions.

~~~
andy_ppp
This 50% figure is debunked here:
[http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2009/08/17/we-
need-t...](http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2009/08/17/we-need-to-be-
careful-when-comparing-us-and-uk-cancer-care/)

In the end largely detection in the US is quite a bit better but the actual
cancer care is similar.

~~~
jandrewrogers
Precisely. Survival rates are strongly correlated with early detection and the
US is pretty obsessive about that. If you read the various papers on the
subject, UK has poor survival rates because they have poor early detection
rates. And in fairness, it is expensive to do the amount of screening that
causes the US to have good survival rates.

Either way, the difference in survival rates is stark.

~~~
andy_ppp
No, that’s not what the article says in totality, have you read it? Your
statement that in all cancer you’re 50% more likely to die in the UK requires
at least a link. It’s just not supported. With prostate cancer the linked
article explains the difference.

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mhh__
Privatization has always been an incredibly overloaded term when it comes to
the NHS. No party is proposing getting rid of state healthcare. The left wing
argument against markets in general even interacting with the NHS is usually
along the lines of [I don't want those fat cats profiting off peoples health].
This makes me wonder: As long as the care is universal and free, who cares how
it's delivered.

I feel the best pro-"privatisation" argument is found in the Liberal Democrat
Orange Book.

~~~
ProxCoques
"As long as the care is universal and free"

The left-wing argument is that businesses exist to maximise profit, so once
you have the profit motive involved it'll eventually have to be paid for at
point of use or not have it at all (assuming public funding is denuded).

This is a much of an article of faith as the right-wing argument that the
profit motive means costs will go down and governments won't have to pay very
much.

Both ends of the spectrum are ideological fantasies of course, but the NHS is
caught in the middle.

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ziggzagg
We keep hearing that Hawking makes his concerning comments about subjects like
AI, aliens and now national health insurance. He is a theoretical physicist.

~~~
stuaxo
With a lot of experience using of the health system he talks of.

~~~
mhh__
?? As do literally tens of millions of people in the UK.

~~~
ProxCoques
Whatever, dude. Do you agree with what he says or not?

BTW Jeremy Hunt's only qualification to be in charge of the NHS was to be the
MD of Hot Courses before he became an MP. Who cares?

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contingencies
Met some NHS technical staff back in 2009 or so at a Linux meetup: they were
grizzled, hardcore knowledgeable, hard working and underpaid.

