When a safety net becomes a straitjacket

The UK’s NHS often appears in discussions on BW and is often held up by American leftists as something to emulate, so I thought I’d give you a British right winger’s observations on the NHS. I’m not going to bombard you with in depth analysis, I’m not qualified or inclined to do that, but hopefully I’ll give an idea of the spell the NHS holds over British politics.

In 1945, before the Second World War was even over, the UK unceremoniously dumped Winston Churchill and elected a Labour government under Clement Attlee. This government introduced sweeping measures, nationalising large areas of the economy and creating the National Health Service.

The NHS was the bedrock of the “cradle to grave” Welfare State intended to provide a safety net for the British people. It is described, without irony, as the “Jewel in the Crown” of the Welfare State. Last year the NHS celebrated its 70^th anniversary and boy, did they celebrate. In a way they do have a lot to celebrate, as an organisation the NHS has grown massively, but is it any good?

The UK performs at the bottom of the top end of the international league tables of health. Depending on which source you go to we’re 20^th to 28^th on life expectancy, a pretty basic health indicator. Not bad out of a field of several hundred, but not as good as a lot of other, less wealthy developed nations that don’t have a free at the point of delivery blanket health service. It’s not great when you consider that Britain’s NHS is the fifth largest employer on the planet.

I’ll type that again slowly and loudly. The NHS is the FIFTH LARGEST EMPLOYER ON THE PLANET.

Nope, not loud enough…

FIFTH LARGEST EMPLOYER ON THE PLANET

1,700,000+ people work for the NHS. Only the US Defence Department, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Walmart and Macdonald’s are bigger. Of course, lefties try to dispute this, saying that really the NHS is made up various Trusts etc. Well, Walmart has stores all over, in the UK they’re Asda, they have 394 stores in South Africa with twelve different names, none of them Walmart, yet these are all counted in Walmart’s total. So yes, the NHS is the fifth largest employer on Earth.

Let’s put that into perspective. The UK, with a population of 67million, has a health service that is bigger than the Russian armed forces, with a budget more than twice as large ($179 billion vs $61 billion). Now, you’d think at least with that massive “investment” in the country’s health we’d have a better life expectancy that Portugal.

Sometimes I’ve actually been able to get people thinking about the NHS with this statistic. Just sometimes. On the whole my countrymen don’t think about the NHS, they feel about it. A Daily Mirror headline last week called it “Our beloved NHS.” Which sums it up nicely.

This doesn’t mean folk don’t criticise it, they moan like drains about the NHS. Today I was watching a TV news report on the fact that figures had been released revealing the worst waiting times for Accident & Emergency since records began. Some talking head woman from the Body of Butting In or Harridans For Health or some such came on to say the NHS needed “more investment”. Boris Johnson (yes, the allegedly deranged right-winger) boasted of a commitment to a £39 billion spending plan. Not to be left out Corbyn thought of a number, doubled it and added nought and pledged that. He also said, with a straight face, the problem was due to lack of staff(!) and lack of money.

The terms of debate on the NHS in the UK are very tightly drawn. You can say you love it or love it a lot. You can promise to spend a lot of money on it, an awful lot of money on it, or s**t loads of money on it. You cannot, under any circumstances, suggest that anyone working on the “frontline” of the NHS (Angels, all 1.7million of ‘em) are anything less than a combination of Florence Nightingale, Mother Theresa and Wonder Woman. You can, if you’re careful, criticise the huge number of backroom bureaucrats. Be careful not to point out that as the NHS is a massive Government bureaucracy of course it’s going to grow bureaucrats like watercress on a moist flannel. If you are a lefty you are pretty much legally bound to say that the evil Tories are out to destroy the NHS. The fact that we had a Conservative government from 1979 to 1997 and the NHS was bigger when they left office than when Thatcher was elected is neither here nor there.

Although there is private health care in the UK the NHS is omnipresent. For the majority of people, it is there for them at those significant and often difficult times. When their kids are born, their parents die, when they have an accident or are seriously ill. Imperfect, massively expensive and inefficient the NHS is always there. People have a very hard time imagining any alternatives. The NHS does still fulfil its original remit of being a safety net for the hard times, but it has grown far beyond that and is now a straitjacket on debate.

I have tried getting people to close their eyes and imagine what a National Food Service or National Clothes Service would look like. They agree, it would be awful, limited, poor quality and slow. They agree that food is as important as healthcare. Then their brain re-sets and say something like “but what happens if I get really ill?”. 

I’ve been a bit flip about the NHS, I’d like to say here that there are many, many people working in the NHS who care passionately and give the best care they can, often in difficult conditions. However, no matter how you look at it the NHS is horrible value for money. Sadly, we really can’t talk honestly about how to make things better. 

The NHS is also part of the ever present incestuous relationship between leftists, media and government. This piece was prompted by the Right Angle report on 11/11 about an NHS Trust in Bristol saying it would refuse treatment to “racists and sexists”. While protecting staff from any and all abuse is part of their remit and I applaud them for that, I don’t recognise them as arbiters of racism or sexism, or anything other than providing healthcare. The NHS is a wonderful gift to social engineers. The fact that it is paid for by everyone is often used to justify intervention in people’s life choices and make us “healthier” whether we will or no. The fact that is everywhere makes it a great testing ground for bad ideas. The case in Bristol is an especially insidious case. I think it’s being used as a canary in the coalmine. If there’s no backlash against this then they’ll move on to the next bit of “social progress.”.

This case gives us a wonderful example of how that incestuous relationship works. Bristol is a Labour city, all four of the City MPs are Labour, the Council’s Labour with a directly elected Labour Mayor, Marvin Rees. Before becoming a Labour politician, he worked as a journalist and as a presenter on BBC local radio. He was also involved in various worthy bodies like the Black Development Agency. He later held a managerial position with the NHS in Bristol, he was (deep breath) Programme Manager for race equality in mental health issues. I looked up what the NHS pays programme managers, around £61,000 ($78,000). And people have a hard time seeing where all those billions go… 

The point is, Mayor Rees knows the local NHS establishment and vice versa, likewise the BBC in that neck of the woods. The NHS Trust in question could launch their little social experiment knowing it will not face any local criticism. In fact, chances are (and I am postulating here, I could well be wrong, I’m not Bill Whittle) I would not be surprised if the idea didn’t come out of some function or event attended by members of the three groups. 

So, adopting a UK style, cradle to grave, socialised healthcare system may not do much for America’s health but it would be a big shot in the arm for lefties. Another place they can employ each other in niche, but well paid, positions before moving onto the next stage of the left/media/government conveyor belt. And, of course a big, state employed voting block that can be relied on to vote for bigger and bigger government.

I did a quick calculation on what our NHS would cost if it was the American NHS. Based on per capita spending the USNHS for 2019/20 would be around $826.25 billion.

Let’s do that longhand.

$826,250,000,000.