Clegg calls for top-ups...

...but misses the point about markets.

At an event hosted by the think tank Reform, Nick Clegg became the first of the three leading parties to commit to allowing patients to top-up their healthcare.

‘I'm a liberal. We cannot continue to deny people the right to top up their care’ he announced.

Good – as Tom has written here, preventing patients from topping up their NHS care privately is immoral, impractical, incoherent and (quite possibly) illegal.

However, the Lib Dem leader also rejected plans to move towards an insurance-based health system. Under Reform’s proposals patients would receive a healthcare premium of £2000 per year, which they would then us to purchase health insurance from a range of Health Protection Providers.

He also backed away from the idea of forcing Primary Care Trusts to compete with one another, instead advocating the option of creating local, electorally accountable PCTs with responsibility for the residents under their care. Such a move would, he maintained, remove some of the control that that Department of Health has on the NHS. The state would, however, continue to play a role in the distributing resources, setting standards and altering patient premiums to reward GPs who work in deprived areas.

Of course, what Clegg misses is the fact that, if left to the market, patients, rather than being given a chance to vote just once every few years for a Local Health Board, would vote every time they made a decision on where and in what form to purchase their healthcare. A real market in healthcare would give patients the right to choose and switch providers, thus driving up standards, increasing innovation in healthcare delivery and empowering patients - benefiting the many and not just the noisy few.

...
written by Julian H (IPN), September 10, 2008

Good post, and I agree to a certain extent - upon identifying government failures, the Liberal Democrats would be better off proposing non-governmental alternatives, rather than local government alternatives. I believe it was John Spiers who made the point that while democracy empowers the loud and powerful, markets can empower everyone - including the quiet and powerless. Liberals should promote this idea.

In mitigation though, at least the Liberal Democrats are recognising the government failures inherent in the NHS and proposing some kind of (in Westminster terms, quite radical) change. This is surely progress, and a considerable improvement on the Conservatives' approach, which is to create a central "Department of Public Health" and dismiss Reform's proposals as:

"not compatible with maintaining universal access to high quality health services"

While Labour and the Conservatives continue to entrench this bizarre and almost quasi-religious idea that the NHS provides "universal access to high quality health services" and must be "maintained" at all costs, at least Clegg has the nerve to break the consensus.

Written by Helen Davison
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
...but misses the point about markets. At an event hosted by the think tank Reform, Nick Clegg became the first of the three leading parties to commit to allowing patients to top-up their healthcare. ‘I'm a liberal. We cannot continue to deny people the right to top up their care’ he announced. Good – as Tom has written here, preventing patients from topping up their NHS care privately is immoral, impractical, incoherent and (quite possibly) illegal. However, the Lib Dem leader also rejected plans to move towards an insurance-based health system. Under Reform’s proposals patients would receive a healthcare premium of £2000 per year, which they would then us to purchase health insurance from a range of Health Protection Providers. He also backed away from the idea of forcing Primary Care Trusts to compete with one another, instead advocating the option of creating local, electorally accountable PCTs with responsibility for the residents under their care. Such a move would, he maintained, remove some of the control that that Department of Health has on the NHS. The state would, however, continue to play a role in the distributing resources, setting standards and altering patient premiums to reward GPs who work in deprived areas. Of course, what Clegg misses is the fact that, if left to the market, patients, rather than being given a chance to vote just once every few years for a Local Health Board, would vote every time they made a decision on where and in what form to purchase their healthcare. A real market in healthcare would give patients the right to choose and switch providers, thus driving up standards, increasing innovation in healthcare delivery and empowering patients - benefiting the many and not just the noisy few. Bookmark Comments (1) Subscribe to this comment's feed ... written by Julian H (IPN), September 10, 2008 Good post, and I agree to a certain extent - upon identifying government failures, the Liberal Democrats would be better off proposing non-governmental alternatives, rather than local government alternatives. I believe it was John Spiers who made the point that while democracy empowers the loud and powerful, markets can empower everyone - including the quiet and powerless. Liberals should promote this idea. In mitigation though, at least the Liberal Democrats are recognising the government failures inherent in the NHS and proposing some kind of (in Westminster terms, quite radical) change. This is surely progress, and a considerable improvement on the Conservatives' approach, which is to create a central "Department of Public Health" and dismiss Reform's proposals as: "not compatible with maintaining universal access to high quality health services" While Labour and the Conservatives continue to entrench this bizarre and almost quasi-religious idea that the NHS provides "universal access to high quality health services" and must be "maintained" at all costs, at least Clegg has the nerve to break the consensus. Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment. Powered by Azrul's Jom Comment for Joomla!