Shabcast 33 – the NHS, the Tories, the Republicans, and the US Health System
Hello there… bit of a serious Shabcast this time, though there are some laughs along the way.
(EDIT: I forgot to say that I’m joined by James – who really knows about this stuff – and Daniel – who really knows about this stuff in America.)
This episode was prompted by the ‘Dementia Tax’ story, and became about the crisis in the NHS generally, and also about the horrors of the American system. It was recorded before the ‘Dementia Tax’ story developed (with Theresa May’s humiliating kindasorta u-turn) and also before the attack in Manchester, so it’s a bit of a relic… but even so, these are live issues, and a lot of what we say hasn’t gone out of date. The NHS is still in crisis, and its still the Tories’ fault, but also still tracks back to New Labour. And the American system is still awful, and the few improvements made by Obama may still be about to be destroyed, and we in the UK are still headed in that privatised, profit-driven direction.
I’d appreciate people sharing this about, for propaganda/electioneering purposes. You never know, it might help a bit.
The audio sample at the start is from this video, which I’d also suggest sharing around.
And here are the links (promised in the show) to the information about the 30,000 excess deaths in 2015 owing to NHS underfunding (I was going to link to the study itself but that doesn’t seem to be possible):
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-02-analysis-links-excess-deaths-health.html
And I ask a simple question: if its terrorism to set off a bomb in a concert, killing 22 people (and it undoubtedly is), then what do you call knowingly and deliberately underfunding a health service that people depend on for their survival, needlessly causing 30,000 extra deaths? For reasons grounded in political ideology?
On a slightly lighter note, here’s a link to the podcast about Bill O’Reilly’s book that Daniel mentions… unless I cut that bit out, I don’t remember at this point. Good podcast anyway.
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EDIT: Here’s something Kit wrote, which acts as a companion (an equal one) to this Shabcast:
http://kitpowerwriter.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/uk-general-election-2-dementia-tax-u.html?spref=tw
May 27, 2017 @ 1:40 pm
Well, anything looks ridiculous when you compare it to the fuss made about white-man-killing terrorism. I did a back of an envelope calculation based on the British counter-terrorism budget and the amount it takes to verifiably save a life with a well-chosen charitable contribution, and I reckon we value a white terrorism victim at about a million African malaria victims. That’s putting this bombing at about the same level as a medium-sized country being utterly wiped out.
(Hard to be exact about how many lifes are saved by counter-terrorism action of course, but I think it’s at least the right order of magnitude.)
Unfortunately, we don’t have an anti-health-service-vandalism budget to compare figures with. I wonder how much you’d need to spend to save a life with a charity which existed to tell people what was happening when this kind of stuff started?
May 27, 2017 @ 9:34 pm
Ugh, this episode was particularly depressing. Daniel did a great job detailing the situation here in the US, and taught me a few things as well, and it’s always nice to learn about how things are structured elsewhere. The NHS, even as it is now, sounds like heaven to me. The situation in both the US and UK is so, so stupid. Wherever you got that audio near the end of the guy speaking to (I assume) his right-wing rep was heartbreaking. Thank you all.
May 29, 2017 @ 6:36 am
This is an excellent podcast, as are most podcasts that go out under the Pex Lives banner. Sadly, however, I think something that’s going to limit how much it is shared is that banner. Not “Pex Lives”, which is ambiguous, but “A Doctor Who Podcast”. The audience for this is far wider than our usual community of nerds and that subheading might put a fair few peoploids off listening.
Just a thought. I don’t usually side with the “electability” creeps but if Corbyn were Ian Levine they would have a point.
July 6, 2023 @ 4:07 pm
Thanks for the interesting article. I have a question whether this project includes the issue of men’s health. My friend is currently undergoing gainswave therapy treatment and it is very important for him. I will be very grateful for the answer