NHS crisis is forcing cuts to maternity care, charity warns

Support for pregnant women is being cut because of the NHS's financial troubles, a healthcare charity has warned. The National Childbirth Trust (NCT) says it is receiving "increasing reports" that NHS antenatal classes, breastfeeding services and postnatal visits are being cancelled.

NHS antenatal classes have been cut or suspended in at least 10 areas in England and Wales, according to the NCT. These are Romsey in Hampshire; Worcestershire; Newham in London; Watford; Gwent in south Wales; south-west Kent; Nottinghamshire; Gloucestershire; Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire; and Wiltshire.

The NCT said it also understood that postnatal home visits have been stopped or are facing cuts in Wiltshire and in east and north Hertfordshire, which would mean new mothers have to travel to a clinic in order to receive after-birth care. An NCT spokeswoman said: "These cuts in maternity services may reflect a more widespread pattern. "The NCT is concerned that these short-term measures to ease financial deficits are having a negative effect on new parents and parents-to-be, preventing them from getting the information and support they need at this important stage in their lives."

The Department of Health (DoH) said it expected local NHS trusts to follow guidelines set down in the children's national service framework which says good antenatal care will include access to parenting education and preparation for birth "as classes or through other means".

A DoH spokesman said: "The soon-to-be-published maternity strategy will set out how we will achieve services that provide real choice and support for women in all settings, from antenatal care through to the early child years."

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IMPOSSIBLE TO INSURE EVERYONE AGAINST EVERYTHING

There's a gazillion ways the body can break down, and some folks want every last one of them covered by insurance. And if that weren't enough, we're seeing pressure to cover things that don't threaten health. Such things as birth control, fertility treatments, Viagra, abortions, sex change operations, cosmetic surgery; what folks once called non-essentials and electives. Expanding the number of things covered by insurance increases demand.

All of which redounds to this: EVERYONE with health insurance is going to be filing a claim. That's a hyperbole of course, as there are a few genetically blessed individuals who neither get sick nor need sex change operations. But the statement is close enough for government work. And it is a violation of the basic laws of the insurance business.

But wait. It gets better. There's a movement afoot to insure EVERYONE. We're talking about adding 46.6 million souls to the insurance rolls. Many of the uninsured are either unemployed or unemployable, and those who are employed have employers who cannot afford to pay for their health insurance. So it will fall to the taxpayer to pick up the tab. Life expectancy continues to rise, which means we have more time in which to file claims. And California governor Schwarzenegger wants to insure illegal aliens.

Bottom line: We have "unlimited" demand for a product in limited supply-and someone else is supposed to pay for it.

HOW can the health insurance business survive?

Well, it's not supposed to. At least that's the position of the political left, which wants to nationalize healthcare. The left doesn't like the baggage that comes with "national healthcare" and "socialized medicine". They prefer to talk about "universal healthcare", "single-payer", "social insurance", or some other softer-sounding thing. But it's all the same thing.

NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman posits the "starve the beast" strategy of the right. But there's a leftist analog: "ride the beast into the ground". That is, load up so many mandates and requirements on the beast-the health insurance business-that it collapses and folds. Then the socialists step into the breech like white knights and save the day with their government system. The reason one might believe such a conspiracy theory is because the socialist reformers aren't putting forth any serious proposals to keep costs down, and without such the beast will indeed buckle, collapse, and go out of business.

Part of the solution to the problem of escalating healthcare costs is simple-reduce demand. Get healthy, so you don't have to use the healthcare system. Change your "lifestyle", go on a diet, start exercising, stop smoking, moderate your drinking, and give up the drugs. Indeed, if America were to have a universal single-payer healthcare system, wouldn't it be everyone's duty to get healthy so that we can get healthcare costs down? But are the healthcare reformers going to demand that folks do the right thing and start taking care of themselves so that healthcare costs don't spiral further out of control? They aren't-because they can't. And that is the dirty little secret of the reformists.

The government can't be constantly monitoring everybody, making sure they eat their spinach, and walk their 5 miles a day. It would involve a mammoth bureaucracy. Besides, people have a right to be unhealthy. They have a right to eat whatever the heck they want, and in super-sized portions. They have a right to gorge on trans-fats, swill booze, smoke cigs, dip snuff, or whatever, and to their hearts' content, and if it ruins their health-tough. Folks aren't going to change their "lifestyle" just so some utopian universal healthcare system can be made feasible. And if the feds try to take away the sole pleasures in our dreary little lives, there'll be hell to pay and a nice revolution to boot. People have a right to be irresponsible, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. But what the utopian reformists don't understand and won't accept is that the rest of us-the tofu-eating, jogging, responsible rest of us-shouldn't have to subsidize irresponsibility and bad behavior by paying the medical bills of the slobs. Escalating healthcare costs due to self-inflicted diseases and imprudent "lifestyle" are going to "run the beast into the ground".

Are there any conservatives out there?

The new universal healthcare plans enacted in Massachusetts and proposed in California require individuals to purchase health insurance. Despite what they tell you, this is not analogous to requiring auto insurance; folks can choose not to drive, and some are unable to drive or are not allowed to. No, this requirement is of a different order altogether; it's worse than a poll tax-it's an existence tax. But if government can demand that individuals buy health insurance for themselves as well as pay taxes for those who can't afford to buy it, shouldn't government at least be able to demand that individuals improve their "lifestyle" and habits so that those who are paying won't have to pay so much? We've been down this road before, during Prohibition. Is America really ready for it again? Just what kind of fascist police state are you willing to put up with?

So it appears that universal healthcare is going to require the responsible, prudent, taxpaying adults amongst us, who delay gratification and regularly save and invest for the future, to subsidize with their taxes behavior they would never countenance in themselves. The reformers think folks should be able to lead a life of dissipation and then check in at the nearest hospital saying, "fix me", and that you should pay for it. But aren't the socialists forcing the taxpayer to take part in immorality? It seems a bit much to ask.

And another thing: Just how "comprehensive" is universal healthcare supposed to be? Are those getting a free ride supposed to get the very same healthcare as those who pay? Is every unemployed, homeless cirrhotic wino supposed to get a liver transplant? And will they be put at the back of the waiting list? How much are we willing to pay for the psychiatric care for the drug-addled underclass? What are the healthcare reform grandees going to require of these people to keep costs down? These are the kinds of the questions that must be answered by the reformers.

Entitlements:

David Walker, the U.S. Comptroller General, the nation's top accountant, is horrified by the actuarial nightmare imposed by entitlements. Walker told Steve Kroft of CBS News: "the real problem, Steve, is health care costs. Our health care problem is much more significant than Social Security." Walker assures us that our present course with entitlement spending is unsustainable and immoral. But socialists want more.

Entitlements account for an ever-growing share of the federal budget; way over half. Entitlements, after having "run the beast into the ground", will run the federal government into the ground. In trying to make government a cornucopia, the reformers simply lack the ability to say "no". Instead of throwing yet more money at this problem, we should instead institute a "freeze" or a budget cap on entitlements. Which could involve means testing or cross-the-board cuts. We should also institute a mechanism that requires all redemptions of federal "trust fund" treasuries to come only out of general fund surpluses (if any), which this writer has urged here.

The federal government, including its entitlement programs, operates entirely on a cash-flow basis. Incoming revenue is immediately spent. If there's a surplus, the feds must spend it as well; e.g., by retiring debt. Medicare isn't amassing reserve funds for your next round of chemotherapy; the money will come from future tax revenue. The federal government has no legal mechanism to save money. The so-called "trust funds" are full of nothing but IOUs.

But corporations and individuals can't operate like the feds; they must set money aside. Folks who don't trust the feds to be there for them, or who are offended by the way the feds operate, or who want to be assured that funds will be waiting for them when they need it, should be allowed to opt out of federal programs....

More here

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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. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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