UK Politics

Y'all Brits will be majorly fucked if this gets through. Hang on to your NHS with everything you can. Healthcare in the US is a nightmare. We are scared to go to the doctor so we don't go bankrupt. Some people choose death over medical bills.

Streeting is the sort of person you wouldn't have in your cabinet unless he represented your genuine beliefs and you need an outrider. He's the Jacob Reese Mogg of Starmer's Labour party.

Here in the US I once went to the optometrist to get a new glasses prescription. While there I mentioned I was getting some new floaters in my eye and a little weird brightness. They took a look and found a tear in my retina, which can threaten your vision if you don't get it taken care of quickly. My insurance company utterly refused to allow me to just schedule an appointment with the opthalmologist. First, I had to wait two weeks to see my general practitioner, then schedule an opthalmologist appointment after. It was three weeks before I saw a doctor who could fix the tear in my retina. Luckily it did not detach, but it absolutely could have.

Our piece of shit health insurance system just about half-blinded me for profit. Do not implement our monstrous system. It boggles my mind that British people would ever even think about it.

Does the US only spend double per capita than we do? I thought cost was an order of magnitude worse in their private healthcare.

Surely this will revitalise the economy, once the health sector has been fully privatised... because you'll be paying 10x more.

laughs nervously in American

no kidding. streeting is literally being paid by the healthcare and insurance industry to do that.

it's why i don't want starmer's labour to lose; i want them to be crushed and fail hard.

I'm no fan of Wes Streeting, but the Canary is trash and is doing its usual of selectively quoting.

We will go further than New Labour ever did. I want the NHS to form partnerships with the private sector that goes beyond just hospitals. Here’s one example. High street opticians have the staff and equipment to provide basic tests. Meanwhile 220,000 patients have been waiting more than 18 weeks for eye care. Specsavers have welcomed Labour’s plan to use high street opticians to cut waiting lists, saying they stand ready to help.

Personally I'm not enormously bothered about high street opticians taking NHS appointments (within their competency). This is essentially the same model that GPs and dentists already follow (and always have done).

There's plenty to be guarded about, but let's not catastrophise based on half-quoted electioneering material.