Rae Cox, NHS worker, Oxford Socialist Party
Nigel Farage would be “open to anything” for the NHS, the Reform UK leader told a LBC interviewer recently, specifically citing France “where you pay into effectively an insurance scheme” that the government contributes to. Those who can afford to top up with bonus insurance, those who can’t are left with the basics.
To be clear, Farage is talking about a system that is not universal and free at the point of use, it would be a fundamental attack on workers.
Nigel disagrees with the vast majority of us who tell polls they agree with a publicly funded NHS. He thinks that it should be ordinary people who foot the bill, not big business bosses.
But while Farage has laid his cards firmly on the table, it’s clear Labour’s holding a similar hand. Since Labour introduced Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts under Tony Blair, the think tank IPPR discovered this has cost the NHS £80 billion, with only £13 billion in investment to show for it. This is before the remaining £55 billion in looming unpaid debts is factored in.
Do you oppose outsourcing a million NHS appointments, scans and services to more profiteers? Labour health secretary Wes Streeting thinks you are more focused on “ideology” than “pragmatism”.
Waiting lists need to come down, but not at the expense of workers. Further privatisation only deepens the costs involved in running the health service for a very simple reason: the shareholders who profit don’t know a scalpel from a spatula, they give nothing back. The only way to deliver a healthcare system that is sustainable and that truly benefits workers is by kicking out the profiteers, insourcing what has been sold off, and renationalising the pharmaceutical industry. To save our NHS we need a workers’ political alternative, one that is the political voice of the trade unions and the working class, that fights for a fully funded, fully public NHS to meet all our needs.
