Mon 17 Aug 2009
Mark Wadsworth gets it!
Posted by Helen Evans under NHS Reforms
[2] Comments
While I am appreciative that in this blog posting last Friday Mark Wadsworth is one of the few people to join NFR in separating out health provision (the facilities) from funding, I would venture to suggest that with appropriate reform the state should no longer remain as a major funder of healthcare – as he suggests.
As Brian Mickelthwait, long ago pointed out in his excellent Libertarian Alliance pamphlet, virtually all healthcare on this planet is effectively nationalised as every country imposes a price fixing monopoly through numerous equivalents of the General Medical Council. Privatise all the provision, open up healthcare to advertsing – and therefore the building of trusted brands – and remove a host of restrictive practices supported by the state and one might start to have a functioning market that most people could afford.
One of the really interesting things about UK healthcare today is that far from doing the really big critical care issues the state has already vacated these areas. Today, if you have cancer you are more than likely to be looked after by a McMillan nurse – ie the charitable funded. If you have Parkinsons disease one of your major support elements will come from the Parkinsons Disease Society, etc, etc.
Thankfully, when you are near death you will likewise be looked after by the hospice movement of which more than 99 per cent is both funded and provided by independent sector.
In a proper market, the state does not have to be a major funder.
Helen, ultimately you are probably quite right, but I did suggest that merely as a first step we’d have a mix of taxpayer funding, private insurance and co-payments (choose your own mix!).
If over time, the taxpayer funding dwindles to nothing and/or is rolled into welfare payments generally (i.e. Child Benefit is increased to a level where parents can afford private health insurance for their children) then that is fine by me as well.
Unlike Brian M, I believe that a small step in the right direction is better than nothing!
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