The private health insurance scam

NHS campaigner and Welling GP Dr Bob Gill outlines how private health insurance is not all it appears to be.
'Not the Andrew Marr Show' is live every Sunday morning (10:30am-12:30pm).

[annenunney]

This really breaks my heart when I think why the NHS was set up in the first place and now greedy people who have no idea about anything but making money it is a disgrace thanks Doctor Bob and you crispin for bringing this to light

[willjohnson]

The NHS dataset was given to Palantir. The most valuable dataset in the world- literally given to them for nothing. We now rent it back from them.

[frankshannon]

I have seen three friends who had operations that went wrong in private healthcare and were just transferred to the NHS for them to sort it out.

[philosophical]

Thank you Dr Bob for highlighting these issues.

[audreymcgready]

Has anyone noticed the amount of private health care ads on TV lately? Or is it just me noticing them?

[michellehesler]

Love Dr.Bob and NTAM show for providing such important coverage of the facts. Wish we could get this show on National TV.

[tillymint]

Welcome to private health care cover! It's all about the share holders. Making money out of ppl being ill is immoral.

[stephencalder]

This should be a wake-up call to fight to protect our NHS from priviteers like Sunak and Starmer.

[mikeharvey]

I love Bob Gill. Thank you so much for your devotion to the nhs. Barb

[lonevoice]

Agreed that we need to renationalise. Very disappointed by the Blair / Brown involvement and don't hear any words of comfort from Streeting.

Privatisation works by restricting limited healthcare facilities to a selective group and pretending that the rest don't exist or are unimportant. It's completely insane but that is where we are heading.

You also have to bear in mind that the NHS is funded directly out of taxation whereas private healthcare is funded by taxed income, and for the affluent that can be income taxed at 45% so only 55% of someones earning finds its way to private healthcare. This also shows part of the motivation for promoters of private healthcare. Their hope is that by eliminating the NHS that the UK tax burden can be reduced along with their own contributions so that less tax is deducted in making their private healthcare contributions.

[peterbradley]

It's over - since the 80's the direction of travel has been towards privatization. If someone isn't making a profit out a service it's gonna come up for sale. In NZ we pay to visit a GP and GP's are allowed to operate as "businesses" that make profit despite getting all their funding from government. Health insurance is popular and covers about 40% of the population through employment schemes. However, if you look at any health insurance scheme everything offered is capped - so that if you go over your cap (such as when you get ill) you are paying for your care.
The biggest irony of the US privatized health care system is that over 50% of it's revenue comes from the US taxpayer via Medicare and Medicaid but these programs are already being carved up and prepared for privatization. Voters will not help - they will be manipulated into believing that a privatized health system is better than a deliberately underfunded public health system.

[dabay]

If they privatize it it will cost more and cover less. In USA they spend twice as much per capita on healthcare and cover much less than the NHS and life expectancy in USA is lot less than UK.

[kwakkers]

In a perverse sense, this could be just the wake up call that very rich people in the UK need to be
made to hear!

[odinallfarther]

People should already know all this you would have to be living in a hole not to know .

[indricotherium]

This makes the term "vulture capitalism" almost literally true, scavenging and fattening off the bodies of the unlucky and the stricken.

[mossychops]

Wellcome Trust v Quakers against the Arms Fair. NHS Property services and BMA?

[madameblatvatsky]

This is a vital issue. The public chooses to keep heads in the sand. Thank you for pushing against the tide.

[bhasb]

All the viewers should share and warn on all their social media groups.

[audreynaylor]

I've been offered private dental treatments. I was so traumatised to be in a compromised position, I had a hallucination that night.

[ianfrost]

The Govt always says they are spending more and more money on the NHS. Is it correct to say the bulk of the expenditure is simply going on administration and not on health care? If this is correct, then why don't the MSM reporters point out this simple fact to demonstrate that the private model is only there for the benefit of the rich and that we should avoid it like the plague? I suppose it's because their careers are so lucrative so long as they keep the truth from the 99%. The BBC's Trusted News Initiative is looking more and more like Orwell's Ministry of Truth.