Post lifted from the Adam Smith blog
Readers of the leftish Guardian newspaper must been choking on their cornflakes [muesli?] as they read UK Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt's article saying why private healthcare is here to stay.
Today, there are three reasons why we are using the independent sector to provide some treatments for NHS patients: to increase capacity, support patient choice and help improve value for money by raising productivity and innovation.
Hewitt told the 'forces of conservatism' who want to block NHS reform that the state-run health system cannot meet the targets to cut waiting times on its own. And she praised the ingenuity of private providers, who now deliver a rising volume of state-funded operations.
Independent providers have given the NHS mobile units for cataract operations and MRI scans, taking services to communities most in need. For example, waiting times for MRI scans in Barnsley have fallen from 20 weeks to five. It is striking how NHS waiting lists miraculously shrink as clinicians reorganise their ways of working when faced with the prospect of an independent treatment centre down the road or patients being sent to a private hospital.
Competition is a wonderful thing, isn't it? But even so, Hewitt still wants to put a cap on it, reassuring her readers that by 2008, the £850m spent on private-sector treatment will still be less than 1% of the NHS budget. Why not follow the advice of our new health report and make it 100%? Could it be that a New Labour government still needs Old Labour votes?
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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation.
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