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Private equity has its sights on the NHS – and with it our faith in public services altogether
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Y'all are doomed if this shit happens. We have it here in the states and it ain't fucking fun. People die because they can't afford to visit the Dr. Others just go bankrupt. Fight this shit tooth and nail.
Came here to say just this. They'll promise fucking anything, but here's the reality:
-The system gets worse for patients AND doctors, because the money is now reserved for the investment firm rather than for paying for services or supporting the hospital. Basically, they'll determine that there are "inefficiencies", like maintenance on equipment like ventilators and IV pumps, free parking (not kidding), doctors seeing less than 4 patients and hour (not kidding), nurses having less than eight patients (also not kidding), and having certain specialties on call 24 hours (for the current rate) and "cut" the inefficiencies. Of course, none of that money being saved actually goes towards improving things for the hospital, patient, or provider, it just gets pocketed by the private equity firm.
-Starting with smaller, more rural hospitals, they'll start stripping the hospitals for assets while simultaneously yelling constantly about how broke the hospital is and begging for huge taxpayer handouts just to stay open for another year. Eventually, in spite of any government bailouts they've received, they'll still close the hospital anyway, assuring everyone that they're very sad about it, but it'll be okay because at least the bigger hospital down the road is still open (for now).
Don't do it, you guys. Send these fucks packing and vote out any politician that tries to tell you that they need to let them fuck up your healthcare system.
We're gonna get the choice to vote for politicians that won't, right? Right?
Yeah, shareholders and social services don't get along well and never will. The blackholes want returns on their investments, and those returns have to be incremental, you have to make more profit every quarter. CEOs will start squeezing every last penny out of people and the government until the healthcare system becomes a shell of itself and only available for those rich ones. We are living it here in the states. Social services like these can never work with capitalism and its profits.
Tories have total control until the next GE. Everything is a smash grab with them right now. They know their card is marked for at least a decade after this lot.
Yeah, this sounds ridiculous. So basically grab as much cash as possible on your way out? It always baffles me as to why and who votes for people like these? People who clearly work so hard against their own citizens.
People are conned by expensive campaigns.
Absolutely. Expensive campaigns made Trump look amazing to a lot of people, and some are even willing to die for him.
Worked for Hitler as well.
"Contemporarily speaking, the term carpetbagger refers to roving financial opportunists, often of modest means, who spot investment opportunities and aim to benefit from a set of circumstances to which they are not ordinarily entitled."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger#Modern_use
but Starmer's labour has been saying he'll do the same: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66319064
I don't know how much things will change after the next GE. the current opposition leadership are neoliberals just like Rishi and co
Oh, man, as a murican, sounds like you somehow received our shipment of Democrats.
yeah... actually we got them back in '97 with Blair and co, this is them on their comeback 😟
Ah yes, those terrible Blair years. If only the Major government had kept going for longer.
where from my comment did you get that I think major was better
anyway there's a reason Blair is not very popular anymore, unlike when he won in '97. the Iraq War was not very good imo
I don't know. He was re-elected with a majority of 66 in 2005, two years after Iraq started, and then in 2007 the Labour party membership forced him out in favour of Brown, who promptly lost the 2010 election to the Tories.
I'll take Blair Mk II in office over Corbyn in opposition any day.
most of the horrors of the Iraq War weren't well understood by the public in spring 2005 yet, 2 years after the invasion. the mood was souring - that's why he lost 54 seats when compared to '97 - he was forced out by labour leadership because by '07 the public's opinion on him had continued to sour - brown losing in 2010 is extremely unsurprising given the financial crash of '08
I'm sure you would lol. have fun in your decaying empire, I hope neoliberalism administered by the other party will actually fix things this time round (spoiler: it won't)
Brown was extremely popular among members of the Labour party, and never had a snowball's chance in hell in a general election.
Bit of a pattern there.
Eventually you have to grow up and accept that the perfect is the enemy of the good.
What Starmer said was that the private use would run alongside efforts to train new staff and create new infrastructure. People need treatment and we do not have the infrastructure to do that. Health services don't just materialise out of thin air.
People vote for it willingly
Of course, some will believe that the pig is pretty because of the lipstick, but the others need to work more to show them otherwise.