Ash Leece May 4, 2023
Bodhipaksa

Hi, people in the UK!

I just got a bill for $3,001.36, which is for one visit to the hospital. That amount is what I have to pay *after* insurance.

Vote the Tories out and protect your #NHS. The system in the US is the system they want for you. They want a profit-making health service because they'd own it and you'd be making them richer every time you go to the doctor.

And people in Scotland: in the long term Labour are not going to save the NHS. Vote #SNP. Make Scotland independent!

May 4, 2023 at 2:17pmWeb
Show threadYesBaitMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa as a Continental European, I always find it interesting that most Brits think that the only alternatives are fully private (US) and fully tax paid (UK) healthcare systems.
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4, 2023
@yesbait You're correct, of course, but the tax-funded NHS has worked very well for a long time, and most Brits aren't looking for an alternative.
Show threadYesBaitMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa I fully understand and agree. I just find US healthcare scare stories always a bit weak for defending the NHS.
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4, 2023
@yesbait Why's that?
Show threadYesBaitMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa because US healthcare is such a ridiculous outlier and joke (with an inherent sadness) that any threat ("if you vote for them, then soon we will be like the US") feels like a scare story (fear the Boogeyman).
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4, 2023
@yesbait Is there anything inherently preventing the UK from going in the same direction, given enough time and Tory government? It seems to be that the current Tory party is in many ways to the right of the US Republican party.
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4, 2023

@yesbait For example, are there examples of the UK privatizing formerly government-owned entities, and those businesses then jacking up prices unreasonably in order to enrich shareholders while ordinary people suffer? For example electricity and gas companies? Has the UK shown itself to be capable of becoming an outlier?

I'll take my answer off-air.

Show threadKagan MacTane (he/him)May 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa Speaking as an American: Seriously, try to stop this! You don't want our healthcare system. It's awful.
Show threadpawkypaulMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa the problem is, we knew what was coming for the NHS but people voted Tory anyway. And here we are.
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4, 2023
@paulb3017 To be more accurate, 43.6% of voters chose the Tories. The majority rejected them. The UK election system just about worked when the choices were closer to being binary, but in a multi-party system it's seriously dysfunctional.
Show threadpawkypaulMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa yes, unfortunately it doesn't matter if the majority votes against them when they have gamed the system so completely. I understand Labour's entitled leader is now reneging on PR too. There's no hope.
Show threadWolfHMay 4, 2023

@paulb3017 @bodhipaksa Neither Conservatives or Labour will ever introduce PR while in power.

They both know they are done for if they do.

The only way to get PR would be a hung parliament where the smaller partner forces this through.

Show threadABOLISH PRIVATE HEALTHCARE!⚫May 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa I've been campaigning about this for a long time. I'm #uninsurable These companies fleece the healthy and throw those most in need of health care onto the scrapheap! #SOSNHS #ReviveTheNHS
Show threadStacyMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa I've posted about this often. As an American in a horrible "healthcare system", I'm watching people I love drain their retirement for illnesses. Insurance is not for the insured; it's for the corporation that has one goal - to take your money and cover nothing. Fight this with everything you have.
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4, 2023
@dancinyogi I My insurance company broke one hospital visit down into six different cases, each of which is detailed on a different "Explanation of Benefits" (i.e. an explanation of why they're not paying everything). None of them actually explains anything. I will fight this, but it means contesting six different decisions simultaneously. I guess they do this to make things easier for themselves.
Show threadChristine BrösenhuberMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa we're facing the same shit here in Germany, thanks to our wonderful health minister Lauterbach. How those people can still sleep at night is a mystery to me.
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4, 2023
@christine_broesenhuber I'm so sorry to hear that. I suspect they sleep at night because they have no empathy for others, and care mainly about how much money they're stashing away in their personal accounts.
Show threadChristine BrösenhuberMay 5, 2023
@bodhipaksa I hope it'll come to haunt them at some point.
Show threadTheNurseIsInMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa Trust me, you want nothing to do with our greedy, profit-based broken healthcare system.
Show threadSkullyMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa no real difference between Tories and labour.
'The Labour Party is a chemically pure party of capitalism and war. It makes as much sense to quibble over the differences between a Labour and a Tory government as it does between factions in the Tory Party. Labour’s connection with the trade unions, much vaunted in pseudo-left circles, is seen by Starmer as a selling point to Britain plc, giving the party direct access to the professional policemen of the class struggle.'
Show threadSkullyMay 4, 2023
@bodhipaksa https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/03/lorh-m03.html
UK: Starmer’s pro-big business, pro-war Labour Party prepares for office

Previous “pledges” by Starmer, made to secure the Labour leadership when many of Corbyn’s supporters were still in the party, to nationalise public utilities, increase income tax for the top 5 percent and abolish punitive Universal Credithave all gone.

World Socialist Web Site
Show threadJMDMay 5, 2023
@bodhipaksa people who vote Tories, can't understand what they read, I doubt they actually can read so.....
Show threadbrandonMay 5, 2023
@bodhipaksa don’t forget to mention how long you have to spend dealing with the insurance paperwork before they let you leave. In the US even a trip to your GP involves paperwork, waiting, taken to room, nurse checkup (tell her what’s going on), wait 15+ minutes on doctor, repeat info to doctor, doctor leaves, wait 15+ minutes on nurse, then check in at the front desk to pay your bill. In the U.K. you wait a bit for the doc, go through things with her, then leave.