Save NHS: Alternative view---Control Health Insurers!

 ©2016 Am Ang Zhang

NHS is going Dental, not Mental!

Patients could have to start to pay charges to use basic NHS services such as GPs because the health service’s finances have become so dire, the leader of Britain’s doctors has warned. 

Dr Mark Porter, the head of the British Medical Association (BMA), said that whoever takes office after the general election will inevitably be tempted to bring in charges and may not be deterred by the unpopularity of such a seismic change to the health service.

....“You say it’s politically toxic. It’s not, really, is it? Look at dentistry and look at social care. They carry with them exactly the same offer to the public by which the NHS was set up; that we will remove from you – this society, us acting collectively – the terrible fear of bankrupting yourself by having an illness, by needing healthcare.

“And yet we allow people to be bankrupted by social care and we allow people to be deterred from seeking dental care because of charges,” Porter said.

Can we think of ways round this?

There is little doubt that a system based on insurance will need smart legislation to control the insurers. If the NHS is going to make use of wealthier individuals to use Health Insurance, then the same smart laws will need to be enacted for the regulation of Insurers. We should have learnt through the banking failures that in business, there is no such thing as self regulation.

In the US: Obamacare!

The Affordable Care Act's benefits are hidden beneath the alarmist rhetoric
Nov 5, 2012   Wendell Potter, Robin Holland

Here are some things the law will do:

·         It will prohibit insurance companies from refusing to sell coverage to people simply because they have one or more pre-existing conditions.

·         It will also prohibit them from cancelling our coverage when we get sick just to avoid paying for our care.

·         It will prohibit insurers from charging women more than men for comparable coverage and will not allow them to charge older folks more than three times as much as younger folks.

·         It will require them to spend at least 80 percent of what we pay in premiums actually paying claims and improving care.

·         It will allow young adults—who comprise the largest segment of the uninsured—to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26.

·         It will reduce the number of uninsured Americans by at least 30 million if all the states agree to accept federal dollars to expand their Medicaid programs.

That said, Obamacare is not a panacea for all that ails the U.S. health care system. I view it as the end of the beginning of reform. We will have to do more as a nation to bring everyone into coverage, to control costs and to improve the way we deliver care. But Obamacare does not resemble the law that many politicians have spent millions of dollars trying to persuade us it is.  Don’t be fooled into voting against your own best interests tomorrow.

Now England:

It must be very obvious that all the talk about medical cover for visitors to England never mention the need for health insurance.

Could this be because insurers have managed not to cover for everything. One need to ask the question on how one ever travel to the US where cost of medical care is extremely high.

We have managed to get people to insure their cars, why not their bodies.

There is of course the need to fully control Health Insurers for those that live in England if they want cover. 

Let people opt out of the NHS if it is so bad! But Insurers need to cover every thing. 

Citizens could be given a tax break and yet have the insurance policy incorporated into their NI/NHS number so that those with the tax break, the insurer will be charged for every kind of medical care they receive if they were within the NHS.

 ©2016 Am Ang Zhang

 

Summary of a popular post:

·                     Ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.

·                     Limits premium spread to normal, high risk and healthy risk to say under 20% either way of normal.

·                     Limits premium discrimination based on gender and age.

·                     Prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people are sick and need it most.

·                     Caps out-of-pocket expenses so people don’t go broke when they get sick.

·                     Eliminates extra charges for preventive care.

·                     Contribute to an ABTA style cover.

We could legislate that Insurers will have to pay for any NHS treatment for those covered by them. It will stop Insurers “gaming” NHS hospitals. This will prevent them saving on costly dialysis and Intensive Care. Legislate for full disclosure of Insured status.

Insurers cannot drop coverage or treatment after a set period and even if they do they will still be charged if the patient is transferred to an NHS Hospital.

©2008 Am Ang Zhang

This will eliminate problems like PIP breast implants.

It will indeed encourage those that could afford it to buy insurance and in any case most firms offer insurance for their employees including the GMC.

To prevent gaming of Insurers by individual patients (I look after their interest too), the medical fee should be paid up front by the patient and then deduction taken from premiums. Corporate clients like those with the GMC should not be gaming Insurers.

Imagine the situation where those with “individual personalised budget” being able to “buy” their own insurance!

In fact, to save money, government can buy insurance for the mental patients and the chronically ill.

This way there will be real choice and insurers will be competing with each other to provide the worst deal.

Why?

What Health Insurer will want the business? 

©2016 Am Ang Zhang

Perhaps they will go back to the US and we will have our own NHS back.                                                                                   

Rose & NHS: What's in a name!

Juliet:

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet

©Am Ang Zhang 2016

Vanguard or NHS, NHS or Vanguard!

NHS & Simon Stevens----Sell or Sail? Jan 25, 2016 ... UnitedHealth is based in Minnesota , home of the famous Mayo Clinic and Simon Stevens is married to an American and they have school age ...

NHS & Simon Stevens: From UnitedHealth ... Nov 5, 2015 ... The unveiling two days ago of Simon Stevens as the new chief executive of NHS England prompted widespread relief, a broad consensus that ...

Ecclesiastes & Simon Stevens: Tannhäuser ... Jan 7, 2016 ... I have always admired Simon Stevens and his ability to quickly picked some of the best loved people in the NHS to promote Vanguard. The like ...

Hospital Based NHS: Future is Now! Oct 8, 2015 ... And Stevens' PACS (part of Vanguard) are explicitly modelled on San ... new NHS boss Simon Stevens's Five Year Plan ushered in a new ...

NHS-Integration: Vanguard or Kaiser ... Sep 7, 2015 ... Simon Stevens spent some years in the US. Is Vanguard a re-working of Kaiser Permanente? Ray of hope from USA? California©2007 Am Ang ...

UnitedHealth & Simon Stevens: Your NHS ... Oct 24, 2013 ... Simon Stevens: now with UnitedHealth. Now Stevens is to play a crucial role in presenting the more responsible face of American healthcare ...

NHS & The Elite: Community & Specialist Hospitals!

The truth is that medical tourists do not come for the 

GP services 
we provide, they come 
for 
the cutting edge medical procedures.

The Elite

©Am Ang Zhang 2013

Zebra in fact belongs to the same family as the horse (Genus Equus) but unlike the horse has never been domesticated. It is believed that the stripes in a herd is protective as many animals merge together and thus appeared larger.     

National Geograhic

There is now a new plot on the horizon: Persuade people that they only need community hospitals near them to be run by Primary Care and they may not even be doctors.

 

This way the punters might be tricked into not going to Hospital A&Es but Urgent Care Centres at these locals.

 

Really.

 

Punters would not be punters if they are that stupid.

 

No matter; as we will close A&Es and even their hospitals.

 

Why?

 

It is the one big drain on NHS spending and it cannot be controlled. We can pay GPs if they do not refer but self referrals to A&E is now the norm.

 

A reprint:

NHS Reform: Democracy is for the Elite! So is Health Care!

Is it really that difficult to grasp! Our democracy is for the ELITE. Why pretend? So is Health Care!

Most people in well paid jobs (including those at the GMC) have health insurance. GPs have traditionally been gatekeepers and asked for specialist help when needed. If we are honest about private insurance it is not about Primary Care, that most of us have quick access to; it is about Specialist Care, from IVF to Caesarian Section ( and there are no Nurse Specialists doing that yet), from Appendectomy to Colonic Cancer treatment (and Bare Foot doctors in the Mao era cannot do the latter either), from keyhole knee work for Cricketers to full hip-replacements, from Stents to Heart Transplants, from Anorexia Nervosa to Schizophrenia, from Trigeminal Neuralgia to Multifocal Glioma, from prostate cancer to kidney transplant and I could go on and on.China realised in 1986 you need well trained Specialists to do those. We do not seem to learn from the mistakes of others.

When there are not enough specialists to go round in any country money is used to ration care.

So we are going to but in a peculiar manner as the NHS used to be state run and free. Reform is needed!!! Enter GP commissioning. If it is your GP doing the rationing it is no longer the State's problem.
Some very clever people indeed are working for the government. 

Is it Conspiracy or Cockup? You decide.

But strangely they thought there is still money to be made.

The current concern for the NHS Reform is perhaps too focused on privatisation.

The main aim by some very clever people in government is that somehow there must be a way to limit health spending.

The first obvious way is to find someone that could do it without the blame coming back to the politicians who needs to worry about the next election or next job.

GP Commissioning was thought to be the answer as the blame would now be on the GPs.

Integration of Health Care

Integration of Health Care now carries a new meaning: integrated as long as it is all within the remit of Primary Care and not between Primary and Secondary Care. Yet there is only so much that Primary Care can do unless they started employing their own consultants and running there specialist hospitals. That is one way of saving money.

The other way is to refer to Any Qualified Provider, the new NHS speak for Private Providers. Better still if these are owned by the same organisations that own some of the GP practices. Believe me, it is already happening and it will spread.

How could this be done? Simple, NHS Foundation Hospitals will not stand a chance if they have to continue with the expensive and unprofitable conditions or expensive dialysis and Intensive Care that many private insurers will not touch. In the new world order, they will fail and be closed or be bought by private companies. We have the regulator called Monitor that will see to it.

Again it will not be the politician’s fault: just bad management.

The new structure of HSCB is perfectly geared towards failing FT Hospitals. Some will survive through high levels of private work for those from wealthy countries. There is only a limited number of specialists to go round in England and in fact in most countries.

Which means that there will be a long waiting list for NHS patients!!!

Rationing by any other name.

It really does not need a genius to work out that Foundation Hospitals if they fail will be bought up by private firms.

 

So there are not enough Consultants and shortage creates demand and you can name your price. Consultants do not really want to waste time in consortia arguing about the price of hips or knees. 

 

Privateers

A big portion of the NHS money will now be spent in the counting houses of the new Commissioning Offices. Gradually more and more of that money will be re-distributed to Privateers.

 

Those who could afford to will now get their own Health Insurance and when the Insurers refuse to cover some conditions you may have to return to the NHS. But who knows, it might just be too late then as those hospitals may no longer be there

So do you really think that hospitals are not necessary, or not necessary for the average citizen of England. Soon they will be sold and it will be costly to buy them back.

What about medical training? If these hospitals are sold, who pays?

And watch out, someone, your parent, your spouse, your child and even your MP may need a Hospital Consultant one day. 

Do we still have those: yes we do!  See here>>>>

In London alone these are specialist hospitals that are famous the world over:

Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital

National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery

The Royal Marsden NHS Trust

Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital

St Marks Hospital, Harrow

King's College Hospital NHS Trust

The Maudsley Hospital

Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust

Then there is Papworth. Need I say more!!!

I know that when you visit them nowadays, these places seem to be full of: non locals. Or could it be that these are now the new locals, I doubt as you can sometimes see the lovely foreign plated cars parked outside them. If I am wrong, I do apologise.

The truth is that medical tourists come not for the GP services we provide, they come for the cutting edge medical procedures and in England, it is also about value for money.'

So, opening up many of these rather precious hospitals for up to 49% private will mean a severe reduction in actual medical times available to NHS patients.

That is why: the pretending is over. No, at the end of the day it will not be the medical care you can get from your GP or Noctors, it will be well trained specialists with up to date complex procedures that you or one of your relatives may need!