[lindylanka]

They are trying to dismantle our National health Service here in the UK. If this happens it will be extremely painful for the many in England who will be excluded from health insurance. The transition itself will almost certainly claim lives. Take a look at how they are proposing to do it.............. this is not in the dim and distant future, the Health and Social Care Bill is passing through our second Chamber, the House of Lords, right now....

Quote:From the Guardian 3.11.11

US companies is offering to rebuild the US economy by exporting healthcare. And we are buying it.

http://www.startribune.com/business/130604608.html

A coalition of U.S. health care businesses, including Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group and Medtronic, proposes to rebuild America's battered economy by selling the country's 'health ecosystem' internationally.

The Alliance for Healthcare Competitiveness (AHC) wants the U.S. government to build its foreign free-trade policy around the health care industry, noting that the sector has been a significant jobs creator since the recession began in 2008. Breaking down tariffs and other forms of international discrimination against America's 'health ecosystem' will allow developing countries such as China, India and Brazil to improve medical care while allowing U.S. companies to rescue the American economy by hiring more people, AHC leaders said Monday.

The worldwide need for health care in aging populations will lead to a demand for goods and services that can drive sales of American insurance, medical devices and record-keeping technology, said Simon Stevens, UnitedHealth's president of global health and an AHC member.

UnitedHealth have already won contracts to run GP surgeries in Leicester, Derby and London.

The article admits:

...the U.S. health care system ...is beset with skyrocketing costs and inefficiencies. Americans currently pay more for health care and rank lower in life expectancy and infant mortality than much of the developed world.

and

Still, the call to rebuild the U.S. economy by selling pieces of what is generally considered a broken health care system struck some experts as a bit awkward.

Minneapolis Public Radio published a commentary on this written by David Durenberger, former Republican U.S. senator from Minnesota, senior health policy fellow at the University of St. Thomas and chairman of the National Institute of Health Policy:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/dis...0/durenberger/

A physician I know read a story in Tuesday's newspaper at about the same time I did, 6 a.m. By 8 we'd found that we were having identical reactions to this absurdity. But he had a better way of expressing it: "It's like a parasite eating its host."

"They have bankrupted our culture, so now they want to try and bankrupt China and India," he said.

It's the story of America's largest private health insurance companies combining with our largest medical device, drug and diagnostic companies and multispecialty medical corporations to create jobs in America "by exporting the wonders of American medicine to the developing world."

Further comment on UnitedHealth here:

http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/1...m-and-its.html

[paula_w]

I don't even know where to begin to express how angry this makes me. Worse yet, I feel powerless. where to begin?

[paddy]

I'm in the UK and have heard nothing about this. Thanks for the info. Privatisation by the back door.

[pegleg]

Lindy - not being disrespectful, but I hope you are badly mistaken! I don't know that much about the UK's political system, but what a good project for the PD communit y to work on if it is true!

Talk with thoseo at Parkinson's Movement, then let us know what position and role(s) we can be assigned. Or better yet - lay out the specifics, point it out to PM and let's brainstorm.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Peggy

[lindylanka]

My eye was drawn by the MEdtronic name initially. Unlike in the US we do not have widespread medical advertising, or not till recently. There has been a rash of ads about health insurance in the last few months. There have however been a few well placed programmes and articles about DBS for a range of conditions, I think Tourettes, epilepsy and migraine are among them.

As I read I became more angry about what is happening. Sure, our NHS has it's own problems, but everyone gets treated. It is not a lottery, with the poor left with no care. Over here people for the most part do not know what it could mean, we have had a socialized model of medicine for so long that most people have forgotten.

I just read in another post about what it is like to be without cover, I know this to be true, but everytime I hear of it it angers me. Medical care should not be limited to those who can afford it, or those who will barely survive because of the cost of it, it should be a human right. The people who put our NHS into place knew this, and did their best to make it happen.

All of the links are from the Guardian article too.

Peggy, Our system is quite different from yours. The House of Lords is our second chamber, where a bill will be sent for amendments. It used to be less affected by lobbying, but there have been constitutional changes that have made it very vulnerable to politicking. There is a fierce campaign going on to amend the bill, all highly political, and the only thing that we can do as individuals is to pressure the Lords. Parkinsons UK is already doing this.

[LindaH]

The thought of exporting our failed US healthcare system to the UK and other countries, is so absurd, it is almost laughable, until you read that this could actually be happening right now. Lindy, I hope your Parliament can withstand the lobbyists' pressure better than the U.S. Congress seems able to . It’s encouraging to read that Parkinson’s UK is getting involved in the legislation.

Two questions from the NPR article – what exactly is a “health ecosystem” and how did Medtronic, a medical device manufacturer become so influential in national and international health care policies ?

[aftermathman]

while the articles contain a lot of comments from "over there" unless I missed it there is not much from "over here", (just an ex Health Minister).

Do you know if the government have a stated position on this ?

At the moment it appears to be all driven by US healthcare interests, I am not sure that politically this could fly in the UK, given our mistrust (rightly or wrongly) of the US healthcare system. Like Paddy this is the first I have heard on this and it could just be another scare story from our scrupulously accurate press, (why let the truth get in the way of a good story !!).

Still top marks to the US healthcare system for nerve, next they will be selling us land on the moon, and knowing our esteemed leader's stupidity, we will probably buy it as well.

Neil.

[jeanb]

Originally Posted by lindylanka

My eye was drawn by the MEdtronic name initially. Unlike in the US we do not have widespread medical advertising, or not till recently.

Lindy, We have ads on the television for meds to help with restless leg syndrome. Of course these are the PD agonists that many of us have had obsessive compulsive problems. In the ad they have to announce possible problems - but when a person hears OC disorders, gambling, sex, do they really know what they are getting in for?

Also DBS is being advertised just about everywhere - even on billboards.

What you have written about what American healthcare companies plan to do is outrageous. They need to fix what's wrong in America, not break other nations' systems.

Jean

[lindylanka]

Hi Aftermathman and others,
In September our house of commons passed the Health and Social Care bill, on a day when most people were getting their kids back to school, or returning to work themselves after the summer. It is a bill that breaks the historic duty of the Secretary of State to be responsible for the provision of health care. It is currently going through the House of Lords, and the hopeful among us are trying to persuade the Lords that this is not is what is right for Britain. It opens the doors to competitive tendering for health provision, which has been presented as a good and desirable thing. It is far from that. I think it would be fair to say that in a society where most people have only been exposed to socialized medicine that we have a populace that is fairly naive to the alternatives. Even those who have visited the US are unlikely to have seen the downsides of it's system. There are places where there is a sort of middle way that works better, but there has been no discussion of these. It looks as though we are heading straight for the US model. Having watched as the proposals to change things in the US have faltered and seen how the common sense behind them has got left behind I am not surprised by what is happening here. What does surprise me is how little people know about this. I took a trip to parliament to meet my MP on a different issue, and he told me this was on the way, and it was the one to watch. I had been looking, but not hard enough. To be honest, if you blinked a little you would have missed the importance of this new legislation, and there has been no discussion at all of how it would be effected. There has been a lot of talk about save our NHS, nothing at all about what will replace it, other than generalisations. Frankly, I believe that is because the discussion has all been with the corporate interests mentioned in the links I posted. In honesty, I think they are just the tip of the iceberg......

How people with longterm conditions fit into this I really don't know, neither it seems does anyone else.

Lindy

[lindylanka]

Jean you raise a very interesting point. As you know from Glasgow, and the fact that patients were not allowed into the main Hall, medical advertising is not allowed in the UK. However there have been a lot of programmes over the last year or so in which DBS is featured as a cure for everything! WEll, not quite, but see my earlier post. This weekend it was announced that restrictions on caesarian sections would be lifted, and that women could elect to have them without any medical reason. I do not know whether that is allowed in the US or not. There has been no discussion of the dangers or long term issues, it was just announced! And presented as though it was something that inherently gave women a better choice. Under a privatised medical system it also gives a much better option for medical providers, surgery is more lucrative than natural birth....... I feel that is is no coincidence that this change, which has never elicited a national debate at all, comes alongside the changes in our health system. In fact there are media articles that deride natural childbirth, and give horrifying stories to support surgery as the better option. I shan't say more, it makes me too angry.........