2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 112,236
- 52,460
Yes....and here we have the NHS trying to deal with healthcare freeloaders......
British Government s Desperate Clampdown On Taxpayer Funded Health Timewasters - Andre Walker
The British government has signaled it intends to launch a crackdown on people who cost taxpayers billions of dollars by abusing free healthcare. Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told the BBC's Question Time programme, patients who book appointments with doctors but fail to turn up will be told how much their actions cost the taxpayer.
Politicians are desperately grappling with out of control costs in the state funded National Health Service. When it was established in the 1940s the government assumed universal healthcare would eradicate disease and costs would fall.
As a result they put little thought into long-term funding, and deliberately overpaid doctors to get them to agree to work for the NHS. The Labour politician who founded the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, famous said of doctors “we stuffed their mouths with gold”.
Today anyone can book an appointment with a taxpayer funded General Practitioner (GP) doctor without giving any reason. The GPs themselves earn an average of $150,000 a year, and ten percent earn more than the Prime Minister's $222,000 salary.
They are required to diagnose simple problems, write prescriptions for basic drugs and refer all complex cases to specialists. The patient is not penalized if they fail to turn up to either the GP or the specialist. Under this new proposal that would not change.
Mr Hunt's plan is to effectively shame time wasters into stopping, although he did say he was “open” to plans for charging. Something the Prime Minister's office later stamped on, saying they would never charge.
British Government s Desperate Clampdown On Taxpayer Funded Health Timewasters - Andre Walker
The British government has signaled it intends to launch a crackdown on people who cost taxpayers billions of dollars by abusing free healthcare. Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told the BBC's Question Time programme, patients who book appointments with doctors but fail to turn up will be told how much their actions cost the taxpayer.
Politicians are desperately grappling with out of control costs in the state funded National Health Service. When it was established in the 1940s the government assumed universal healthcare would eradicate disease and costs would fall.
As a result they put little thought into long-term funding, and deliberately overpaid doctors to get them to agree to work for the NHS. The Labour politician who founded the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, famous said of doctors “we stuffed their mouths with gold”.
Today anyone can book an appointment with a taxpayer funded General Practitioner (GP) doctor without giving any reason. The GPs themselves earn an average of $150,000 a year, and ten percent earn more than the Prime Minister's $222,000 salary.
They are required to diagnose simple problems, write prescriptions for basic drugs and refer all complex cases to specialists. The patient is not penalized if they fail to turn up to either the GP or the specialist. Under this new proposal that would not change.
Mr Hunt's plan is to effectively shame time wasters into stopping, although he did say he was “open” to plans for charging. Something the Prime Minister's office later stamped on, saying they would never charge.
