[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