The statement by Gordon Brown about a proposed NHS Constitution is distinctly scary. (He has a thing about getting constitutions through the Parliament doesn't he, bet we don't get a referendum on this one either).
"We will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined in a new constitution of the NHS, setting out for the first time the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care."Er if a taxpaying subject of Her Majesty has an illness, they, having paid for the service are entitled to it. That's it.
But no, if your lifestyle isn't up to the bureacratic model of morality then you may find treatment withheld. Who the blue-bottomed, endogennous, scrapie-ridden, cycolpean son of the manse does he think he is? First it is smokers and fatties who get written off, then drinkers. Maybe car drivers will find a hike in their tax bills, who knows?
What happens when somebody - like those chaps who fought against their DNA being kept on the national database despite not being found guilty of anything - takes HMG - or more likely their local NHS truist to the ECHR on basic equality grounds? Or does Mr Hauptbefehlsleiter Brown feel that smokers and fatties are indeed lesser beings, not indeed equal in moral terms to the pure ones, those who go to gyms and eat bran flakes.
Meanwhile we discover that, surprise surprise the Government has been loading the dice about its health consultations into - you guessed it, smoking and alcohol. Yes they have been fixing the figures by funding oprganisations to tell it what it wants to hear in order for it to announce that it is doing what the public wants. (and I wonder where it learnt that tactic)
Do they think we are all utterly thick, do they think that we will forever sit on our fat backsides (stuffed to the sphincter with fast food) and not respond. I hope so because they will get one bloody great surprise very soon.
3 comments:
OK, some smokers are to blame for their own illnesses, so you could argue it's only fair to make them pay a bit more tax.
Ah. They do.
About £15 billion or something in VAT and tobacco duties and other bits and pieces (from memory, who cares). Which is about three times as much as is spent on cancer care in total.
But Mark, while I agree with you about smokers paying higher premiums, whilst we maintain the fiction of an NHS it is covered by the rules, and those rules forbid discrimination on all sorts of things.
Can you imagine if AIDS treatment was withheld from those whose activities made the occurence of the disease more likely...
But gentlemen,the eussr owns your body,tells you what you may think,and your internal organs are only being loaned to you,and they do not want them messed up come harvest time,because they already have a buyer lined up and waiting,and since you do not violently protest they take it as acceptance that you agree upon your status as livestock.
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