... so can Healthcare be a business ? ...
... for anyone outside of the United Kingdom (never was a nation so misnamed ) evidently the answer is 'Yes' ... but is it really? ...
... healthcare = the provision of service for the protection, improvement, maintenance, or, sadly in some cases, the reduction in degradation of the health of the individual ...
... that in itself is not a business ... it is an aspiration ... a basic human desire to care and provide succour for those in need and suffering ... this has been a demonstrable and recorded cornerstone of societies since the dawn of mankind ...
... and whilst socio-economics was established on the local goat-standard and medical science did not extend beyond willow-bark and trepanning everything was fine ...
... then some bright spark (who maybe had no viable inherent skill or talent) instigated the concept of a cash based economy ... and matters rapidly escalated from there ...
... so now we have a social health care model within G.B. plc that is anything but ...
... health care is financed so that is 'free at the point of need' and is delivered equitably and without means testing of the individual ...
... but the default status therein is that social health care is for all, a true socialist model (with a small silent 's'), and is not designed for the specific individual ...
... the difference between 'made to measure' and 'off the peg' ...
... so if the service is for all then you takes a ticket and you waits in line ...
... if you are in acute, life-threatening need that you jumps the queue ... otherwise you waits ...
... but then we run into the brick wall mentality of ' well, I never need healthcare so why should I pay a greater tax burden to no benefit to myself, after all, A&E are just full of obese dunkards ne'er-do-wells and NHS hospitals are rife with superbugs ... I know this because I read in the newspaper ... saw it on TV ...' ...
Hmmm
Problem is ... when the unlikely event of anyone requiring acute life-saving treatment occurs ... the individual is very unlikely to be able to afford the true cost of their immediate care and ongoing, often life time, after care ...
... all private health care insurance plans are a gamble (that is after all what insurance is ... a high stakes financial flutter) ... based on premise that the majority will not claim ensuring there is sufficient in the pot for the shareholders, the executive dividends ... and the few unlucky souls who need a pay out ...
... so we have a choice ... all pay in together, and unlucky souls take out ...
... or all, who have the income to do so pay in, and the unlucky souls in that much smaller pool take out ...
... and those outside the pool ... well like all fish removed from their natural environment ... thay flounder and gasp
Never mind - there is always the witch-hazel
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