A chap I know from cricket hurt his back the other week. He went to hospital, and they sent him packing to his GP as being in agony was not urgent. His GP said he would need an MRI scan but that would take three to six months.

Pay up or Feel the Pain

So, in pain, he bought one for £300.00. A few days later, I had a replacement crown on my front tooth. There are no NHS dentists, so it costed me £677.00. I could have left it to go black, I suppose, but I don’t want to show off a rotten tooth to the world.

Can I afford it? Not really but needs must, so I suppose I can. If I couldn’t, it would just rot and fall out. Could the chap from the cricket club afford an MRI on his back? Yeah probably. He is single and has a decent income. If he couldn’t afford it, he would just have to be crippled in pain for months.

So, there you have two examples. I don’t really want to use BUPA and nor did he, but what choice did we have? He would have had to wait months in agony. I would have had to scour the nation for a non-existent NHS dentist. It was announced today 9 out of 10 of them aren’t taking patients.

Pushed into Private Health

So, what about those who can’t afford it? Young families, the vulnerable, or the elderly. Do they just have to accept they are going to be in pain? It looks that way. We are already in a two-tier health system. It’s okay saying, “It’s alright, I can afford it”, but the bar of free health and private affordability is getting higher. More and more people are getting pushed into private health to stay fit.

People are waiting around in agony, yet the woman who wants to be Prime Minister thinks that lower taxes and further cuts to public services are the answer to everything. I can’t get my head around that, I really can’t.

Low Taxes Don’t Bring Joy

Anyone who did even the tiniest bit of research will see that the happiest and healthiest nations are those with higher taxes but exceptional public services. People can see that they have invested in their health, welfare, and retirement. The evidence is there, yet in Britain we continue to follow those who flog the dead horse of uber capitalism.

It’s almost as if though starving the NHS of funding and forcing the public to pay for healthcare is a Tory ideology that makes their friends and donors very wealthy.

Surely not?