Health Issues and Politics. The General Election in Britain (2). 2019.

              " I predict, (in advance) that these (and other) false assumptions will underlie the basis of the political debate to come, and that the inevitable result will be that Britain decides to spend still more money on a medical system whose failure is spiraling out of control."

I predicted this back in August - that political parties would seek to outbid each other on how much additional money they could spend on the NHS. And this is what has happened! It was an easy prediction based on one of these false assumptions - "that health is good: therefore spending more money on health is good".

• At the moment (2019-2020) the UK spends £121 billion on the NHS.
• The Conservative party has plans to increase this to £149 billion.
• The Liberal Democrats have pledged to spend £154 billion.
• And Labour is committed to spend £155 billion.

It remains to be seen who will win the election, but two things have already been made clear

• there is no longer a political debate about how much more money to spend on the NHS, and conventional medicine: the politics now is about each party seeking to outbid each other in their plans and expenditure promises
• despite the mainstream media castigating the Labour party for its spending promises - the huge increases being promised are not sufficient to meet the needs of the NHS. The NHS, now totally dominated and controlled by pharmaceutical medicine, has announced that these increases are not enough. The NHS needs even more.

NHS Providers has accused politicians of not offering 'credible answers' to the NHS's biggest challenges, of ducking the big issues in health and social care during the election. Its head, Chris Hopson, writing in the Times, has urged all political parties not to make 'empty promises' or create 'unrealistic expectations.

The parties have also made promises to increase staffing. Labour, for instance, has pledged to boost nurse numbers by 24,000, the Conservatives by 50,000.The Liberal Democrats have promised to put one penny on income tax to help fund health and social care.

But despite this Hopson said the election debate had 'fallen short' - presumably of his hopes and expectations. Politicians have just not listened to him.

What this does is to give notice to all political parties that spending money on an NHS dominated and controlled by pharmaceutical medicine is always going to fall short. The NHS, as currently constituted, is a bottomless pit. It does not matter how much money is thrown into it - it will still demand more.

So why is this? And why has this 'why?' question never been asked - by politicians, or the media?

This is what happens when you continue to increase spending, exponentially
- on a failed medical system.  

Pharmaceutical medicine is not making sick patients better, so the demand for health care never gets less. And drug and vaccine 'side effects' cause epidemic levels of chronic disease which then have to be treated. And they are treated by a medical system that does not work. Then, patients damaged by these drugs and vaccines have to be looked after.

So I am not critical of politicians who believe it is a good idea to spend more on health. But I do blame politicians for failing to ask appropriate questions.

Why is it that, no matter how much money is ploughed into the NHS, it is never enough?

The problem with the NHS is not decades of under-investment, or an ageing population. It is that investment is being made into a medical system, pharmaceutical medicine, that does not work, that has never worked, and will never work.

Politicians are investing in a clapped-out car, putting it in for service each year in the hope of improved outcomes, paying more each subsequent year for the service, but always failing to check whether the car has an engine that actually works, or can be made to work.

HEALTH & THE POLITICS OF THE GENERAL ELECTION (2019). The 'Why?' question that is never asked.

As I predicted (in August 2019) health is becoming a major issue in the General Election. It was easy enough to predict! Health has been a major, if not the issue, in every General Election since 1945. The reason? I have made the argument many times.

• Health is good: therefore spending on health is also good: so politicians fall over trying to outbid each other.

In this link I outline the financial costs of spending ever-increasing amounts of money on a system of medicine that is palpably failing to deliver good health. It is a system of medicinem based oh pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, that is NOT making us better. It's actually making us SICKER - year by year. This is why the UK's National Health Service (NHS) is in continual crisis, always demanding more money. It has created a vicious circularity.

The more money we spend on conventional health services  >> the sicker we become >> the more money is needed >> the greater the demand for more resources >> politicians agree to provide more money >>> so we get sicker >> and so on, election after election.

Yet this election is bringing up many other huge spending commitments, by all parties. These are secondary health issues, issues that have arisen because of the ongoing failure of conventional medicine. I will focus on the two main areas.

• Education and Care for Disabled Children. It is not possible to have a health care system that is producing epidemics of autism, ADHD, birth defects, et al., without ultimately having to provide them with specialist education and care support.
• Social Care for an Ageing Population. If the health care system cannot deal with epidemics of arthritis, cancer, heart disease, COPD., diabetes, et al., and which is producing epidemic levels of dementia, an increasingly dependent ageing population has to be looked after.

As an electorate, and a society, we are too willing to look at the current situation, and respond to it. There lots of children with special education needs - so why do we not cope with their needs better? There are lots of older people who cannot look after themselves, and need high levels of care - so why do we not cope better with their needs? In some respects, thank goodness that we do - we live in a society that does demand better for our children and older people. Thank goodness we do live in society that cares.

But there is a question that is never asked, and therefore never answered. The result is that no real political solutions are never found for these problems. It is to ask the question - 'WHY?'

• Why are there increasing numbers of young people who need more government funding and support?
• Why are there more older people who need more government support and funding?
  

When there are attempts to ask 'Why?' the political and medical answers are grossly inadequate, and ultimately futile. They focus on non-problems.

• Children with special needs have always existed.  Yes, but never in such numbers! 
• There is an ageing population. Yes, but the proportion of older people requiring care has never been higher than it is now.

These are the secondary costs of the failure of conventional medicine. I wrote about this in October 2018, and again in January 2019. It is no longer about increasing NHS funding. It is about picking up the pieces of a failed medical system. And this General Election is highlighting how the NHS, and the dominance of the pharmaceutical treatments, has created the election agenda that is going to be ruinously expensive.

And the sad fact is that most patients, all our politicians and political parties, plus our meek, unquestioning mainstream media, are still failing to ask the correct question.

WHY?

Health issues and Politics. The General Election in Britain. December 2019.

All signs suggest that there will be a British General Election before the end of the year. It will focus mainly on Brexit issues, but like all elections in the UK since the end of the second world war, and the inauguration of the NHS, health will play a central role. This blog will focus on these health issues, how important political parties consider them to be, and the role it plays in the result of the election.

This is the first blog, others will follow as the issues emerge in the coming weeks. The basis of the blog will be to explain and extend my explanation of the importance of health in British elections which I wrote in my E-Book, "The Failure of Conventional Medicine", and specifically the chapter, "The Politics of Health Provision". It will examine certain statements I made in that chapter.

• Health is good - so spending on health is good.
• The NHS spends money on conventional medicine - so it must be best.
• Traditional medicine is ignored - so it cannot be any good

I predict, (in advance) that these (and other) false assumptions will underlie the basis of the political debate to come, and that the inevitable result will be that Britain decides to spend still more money on a medical system whose failure is spiralling out of control.

6th August 2019

Ever since Boris Johnson became prime minister an election looked a distinct possibility, the only way he might be able to guide his party through its disastrous progress towards Brexit. At the weekend political pundits have seen the first clear signs that this is Johnson's intention, or at least his expectation. And what did these 'clear signs' consist of?

Still more spending pledges on the NHS, involving £850 million for 20 new building and infrastructure projects for NHS in England. This will fund new wards, intensive care units and diagnostic centres, and an extra £1 billion to improve and maintain existing buildings. This new spending commitment will mean that the NHS has now been given an extra £7 billion in the financial year 2019 to 2020.

The response of the Labour, the official opposition party, has been predictable, and twofold.

• It is not enough, the NHS needs more money
• Is this actually 'new' money - basically a technical issue about whether this is a real increase in NHS resourcing.

So the bidding process has started, and we can certainly expect further bids to be made during the course of the campaign.

Meanwhile, the NHS continues to play its predictable role. They are grateful for the government's increased spending commitments, but they are not sufficient. They need more.

• there are 100,000 vacant posts within the NHS, and it is struggling to cope with the growing demand for health services.
• NHS buildings and infrastructure requires £6 billion rather than £1 billion to deal with the problems they face.

The mainstream media, predictably, goes along with this. When journalists interview politicians questions are asked about why there is not more money for the NHS, pointing out the parlous state that the NHS is in. To confirm this journalists then interview NHS medical staff who predictably confirm that the NHS is in a parlous financial state, and are given the opportunity to outline the areas where more money is required.

So the problem with the NHS is that it is under-funded, under-resourced. There are no problems that the NHS could not resolve - if only political parties would agree to give them more (and more) money.

The debate has not gone further than this, and I confidently predict that the debate will go no further! The political parties will not question why pumping any more money into the NHS now will make it any more effective than the ever-increasing amounts of money money that has been pumped into it since 1948.

For my 'addendum' blog, written in December 2019, just before the election, go to this link.