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April 19, 2005
Health
We've had all the buzz words today. Waiting lists, targets, cancer, choice. You name it. But what does it mean?
The thing about health, as promoted in the UK, is that it, or rather the service that is supposed to give it to us, should be free at the point of use. No party seriously disagrees with this viewpoint. Howard even went so far as to sign the ZNL petition to 'keep the health service free at the point of use'. But there's a fundamental problem here that needs a little thought.
To see why you need to go back to the ideas of supply and demand. Fundamentally this is what, in markets, sets the price. If the price is forced to be free, there's nothing to restrict demand, and in a population with increasingly high expectations, and of increasing age and infirmity, that demand can effectively be infinite. To put it another way there are only two ways to make demand equal supply. Either by price, or queuing. (Rationing is just another form of queuing.) In fact, though no politician would admit it, The UK health service operates by a combination of the two. You join a waiting list or you pay for private treatment. This has always been the case, and it's hard to see how that can ever change. So really the only way you can adjust the situation is to try and set the standard for the 'free' health service sufficiently high that people have to pay a LOT to get anything better. If you do that people really don't care that the very rich can 'jump the queue', since everyone knows that in the final analysis the very rich can always do that.
There's two ways to go about this. Firstly set targets that seem desirable to people. The don't have to be reasonable to experts. If they're achievable, either by fiddling the books or by ignoring unseen other facets of performance, this will do the trick. Secondly, genuinely put more money in. Again, it doesn't have to be spent on health care directly; as long as people see very important performance indicators getting better 'as a result of' more money, they will think their free service OK, and getting better, and won't worry too much that very rich people can get even better service.
Any of this sound familiar?
TBC, by contrast, are looking for a phased over boundary, whereby slightly rich people can get a bit better service, and furthermore take a bit of cost from off the shoulders of the NHS. The second part looks fine, but the first part is heresy, because it's not just the unattainable toffs with rollers that get a two week hip replacement, it's the guy next door with a 2 year old Audi who gets a 4 week one, while you have to wait 7 weeks. Envy plays well here. Not for nothing was socialism called the politics of envy.
The problem with a lot of this is that is that it's counter-intuitive. Letting people pay a bit might actually make it better for those who can't pay. Doesn't sound right, but probably is. But equally, thinking that, because you don't pay anything it's free sounds right but isn't. TBC have got to find a way of getting across a message of personal self reliance before thay have the slightest hope of electory success.
Ok enough already.
15 Minutes of Fame
Wafik Moustafa Conservative candidate for Bootle.
TBC polled a massive 7.95% of the vote last time.
Our very best wishes go to Wafik Moustafa. Unfortunately no pictures are available of this brave soul.
You read it here first.
Look in the Examiner today. (Cork's Irish national newspaper) You'll find an article on the back page telling you about Blair 'forwar not bach' photo opportunity. You read it all here on April 14th.
Look in the Telegraph letters today. Brian Christley, of Abergele, Conwy, suggested an ASBO for Paula Radcliffe. You read it here yesterday.
Today's Political Betting prediction: - Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 76 seats
Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at April 19, 2005 12:36 PM