George Hollingbery on Healthcare

First, and most importantly, it has to be right that a country as wealthy as ours should provide healthcare free at the point of delivery as a matter of right to all its citizens.

Anyone with a knowledge of countries where this is not the case should be under no illusion as to the inhumanity of any other system.

Due to a administrative mistake by a broker, my American brother in law was diagnosed with a brain tumour in the one week in his entire life when he was not covered by health insurance. For the remainder of his life, he and then his mother fought the system to get treatment he needed without facing the prospect of selling the family home.

But that doesn’t mean that the way we run the NHS provides us either with the best service or a good value service. International comparisons suggest that we enjoy neither.

Outcomes in the UK are poor by comparison with many of our continental colleagues, even though our levels of funding now exceed the European average. I personally favour a system of social insurance with levels of care defined by government as used in whole or in part by many of our European neighbours.

In this system, all consumers exercise choice over which supplier to buy their healthcare from. All suppliers are regulated by Government but, as long as they can demonstrate adherence to the standards required, there are no other barriers to supply. Those who cannot afford to pay the insurance premiums are subsidised either in part or in whole by the state.

The principle consequence is that politicians are taken out of the health equation, consumers have choice and so an element of competition is introduced but, critically, base levels of care are not threatened.
The consequence elsewhere has been higher levels of sustained investment in health and better outcomes for the same inputs.

Now doesn’t that sound attractive?

More on the Conservative Party's thoughts on Health can be found here.