Elections, Politics and Health Spending?

Health is good; therefore spending on health must be good; therefore democratic politicians at election time, when they want our votes, promise us more health care.

            In Britain, since 1948, the expansion of the NHS has been based on one extraordinary idea - that as health is ‘good’, a vote winner, so spending on health must also be ‘good’. It is this one single idea that has allowed the NHS to grow at such a phenomenal rate!

But what if the additional money is spent on a health care system that does not work; and whose drugs and treatments cause further damage to our health? This is what has been happening in democracies around the world for the last 100 years, or more".

• we are unwell,
• we accept ineffective pharmaceutical drugs,
• they make us sicker,
• so we demand more health care,
• and we get more ineffective, sickening health care, which compounds our sickness,
• ..... so we demand even more to be spent on health care!

Eventually, an ineffective and iatrogenic health care system dominates not only our health, but the national economy; and is now even threatening to effectively 'bankrupt' governments. There is no more money to spend.

I am not going to defend these statements here. I really don't need to - the evidence is happening right now. In the UK and India we are already in the midst of election campaigns in which health spending is dominating the political debate. European and USA elections will follow later in the year. So the proof of the statements made here will be clear for all to observe.

• We are sick (unasked question: why are we sicker now than we ever have been before?)
• We want more health care (unasked question: what sort of health care do you actually want/need?)
• Okay, Okay - we are listening (we want your vote), so we will give you yet more of the health care that is not making you better, and making you sicker).
• Then we can watch as politicians out-bid each other with spending commitments on moving more resources into pharmaceutical medicine.
• Listen, very carefully, you might be able to hear the gleeful response of the drug companies as they vie with each other to get hold of more of the new money. Later, we will be able to see that their profits have escalated, again).
  
• Ultimately, we will be able to watch how chronic diseases (allergy, arthritis, asthma, autism, autoimmune diseases, cancer, dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, heart/kidney/liver/lung disease, mental health, et al) have continue on their inexorable, epidemic rise to new unprecedented levels.
  

If that does not happen, please let me know!

 

THE NHS. Even more money, allied to the promise of a new plan. A brave new dawn? Or just more of the same?

• The NHS has a new plan that focuses on the prevention and early detection of disease. 
• And it has been given an extra £4 billion more to spend every year.
• Together, the NHS claims, they could save 500,000 lives.

A brave new dawn?

Or just more of the same?

The NHS plan will mean that GPs, mental health and community care will be awarded the biggest funding increases, even though 1 in 11 posts are currently vacant, and there are no explanations about where the new staff is coming from. The plan's aim is to reduce the reliance on hospitals, even though some senior hospital doctors are already warning that they face "a near-on impossible task." The president of the Society of Acute Medicine, Dr Nick Scriven, has said that he is "staggered" by the plan - given the problems facing hospitals, according to a BBC News report.

The NHS, as usual, is struggling. In terms of patient care it is missing all three key waiting time targets (A&E, cancer care and routine operations) - hence the reason for throwing more money at the problem, and coming up with a new plan. 

Financially the NHS is also overspending. Indeed, the media is already being told that the huge increase in funding is sufficient only to plug (i) inflation, and (ii) the yawning gaps that already exist in the NHS's health care provision. So even an additional £4 billion, to add to the £120 billion already being spend, is already spent, and is insufficient to keep up with patient demands!

This sets the agenda for new spending demands by the NHS, demands that will no doubt increase this year, next year, as more patients come through the door. These demands will be met, as always. More money will be found. But never enough to satisfy the bottomless of pit of the conventional medical system.

So perhaps the new plan will help! Unfortunately the new plan is just that, another 'new' plan. It is designed to overcome the inherent problems of the NHS. Whenever there is a new crisis (which is now a regular occurrence) new money is demanded and given, and a new NHS plan arises to justify the new spending, and to explain why it will work - this time.

Regular readers of this blog will know my explanation of this circuitous, never-ending NHS problem. It applies to every national health care service in the world that is dominated by conventional medicine. 

• The NHS is dominated by conventional medicine, which itself is dominated by the use of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. 
• Drugs and vaccines do not work, and they have never worked. The best they have ever done is to ameliorate illness, and this does not decrease the number of patients walking through the door of the NHS.
• Indeed, drugs and vaccines make matters worse, through their side effect and adverse reactions. The illness and disease caused by drugs only increase the number of patients walking through the door of the NHS
• So the more money spent on the same kind of medical intervention will only increase patient demand for yet more treatment.

So is the new NHS 'prevention' plan likely to work?

Let's look closely at what conventional doctors (GP's) are likely do in their new (?) and enhanced preventative role. How are they going to spend the new resources being made available to them.

• When a patient is in pain (s)he will be given painkillers. These may temporarily reduce pain but without doing anything to relieve the source of the pain.
• When a patient has an infection (s)he will be given antibiotic drugs, if there any that still work in killing bacteria - both 'good' and so-called 'bad' bacteria.
• When a patient is found to have high blood pressure (s)he will be given an antihypertensive drugs.
• When a patient is thought to have a risk of heart disease, or stroke, (s)he will be given Statin drugs.
• When a patient is depressed (s)he will be given antidepressant, and antipsychotic drugs.
• And to prevent deadly (?) diseases like Mumps, Measles, Rubella, and most anything else, our children will be vaccinated, .

In other words, the plan will ensure, and the additional money will enable, more to be spent on the same old, failed treatments. After all, conventional medicine has nothing else to offer. If it had anything safer or more effective it would be offering it to patients now! And the drugs mentioned above are just a few of the drugs that are causing serious patient harm, through their side effects that are really serious new illnesses and diseases.

• So the new NHS money is being spent to hide medical failure. It will further increase sickness levels, and patient demand for more health care. It will fuel more demands for more government spending on the NHS.
• The new NHS plan will give conventional doctors responsibility for preventing illness and disease, but the only tools they will have at their disposal are the same tools that have caused the crisis.

I will be writing about these new and increased demands for more NHS spending in a few years time, when this prediction is fulfilled, as all my others have been!

Unless, of course, between now and then, there is a 'eureka' moment - that conventional medicine is failing - and that spending more on it will prove to be no more a self-fulfilling, guaranteed route to more failure. That we need to start looking for alternatives to this non-ending saga.