https://socialistaction.org/2018/02/27/60000-in-london-demand-funding-for-national-health-service/
60,000 in London demand funding for National Health
/ 2 days ago
March 2018 British health
By ANN MONTAGUE
On Feb. 3, doctors, health-care workers, unions and anti-austerity
activists hit the streets in the pouring rain to demand an end to the
decades-long budget cuts to the National Health Service (NHS). They also
demanded money to raise salaries for workers and to completely reverse
the privatization schemes planned by the Tories, the current ruling party.
The activist organizations, People’s Assembly and Health Campaigns
Together, worked to organize unions, health workers, and Labour Party
activists in a strong united-front coalition based on a list of demands
to save the NHS from privatization. They have specific demands: End the
spending freeze and cap on NHS pay; halt the imposition of “new models
of care” pending full public scrutiny; reinstate the NHS as a public
service—publicly accountable, publicly owned, and publicly funded.
The 60,000 London marchers carried signs: “More Staff, More Funds, More
Beds” and “Saving Lives Costs Money, Saving Money Costs Lives.” One
marcher, Tamsyn Bacchus, told The Guardian that she was afraid there
were plans to change the NHS into a U.S.-style user-pays health service.
“It is so important that when you are ill, when your child is running a
fever, when you need the hospital or a doctor, you can get them without
worrying about having to pay for it.”
Marxist historian Paul Le Blanc was in London and attended the march. He
reported that the most visible forces at the march were the unions,
particularly the transport workers, communications workers and
health-care workers. Also, local Labour Party and Young Labour groups
took part.
Le Blanc said that the speakers he heard were “quite militant, clear,
class-conscious, persuasive—sometimes quite moving.” Some speakers spoke
of escalating street actions and not wanting to wait for the next
election. In addition to the mass march in London, 54 other events took
place across Britain, including actions in Wales, Scotland, and Northern
Ireland.
Le Blanc told Socialist Action that the U.S. also needs health care as a
right, “without insurance companies and other profiteers getting in the
way. That is what the working-class majority won in Britain right after
World War II, and now the right wing is trying to defund it and gut it
and sell it off to private business.”
March 2018 Brit health 2
Just prior to the London march, Professor Stephen Hawking and leading
doctors won a full judicial review to determine the lawfulness of Health
Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s proposals to introduce Accountable Care
Organizations (ACO) into the NHS. Hunt was forced to table a plan that
would have allowed commercial companies to run health and social
services across a region of the country.
Hawking has consistently claimed that health policy under the Tories was
heading toward a “U.S.-style insurance system run by private companies.”
The NHS doctors represented by the public sector union UNITE were
concerned that “without the judicial review it would be pushed through
Parliament with no vote and no scrutiny.”
Trump attacks NHS
U.S. President Trump took the opportunity of the mass demonstration to
attack the National Health Service. He claimed that it shows that “The
Democrats are pushing for Universal Health care while thousands of
people are marching in the UK because the universal system is going
broke and not working.”
Trump received a swift reply from everyone from the Tories to Labour.
Health Secretary Hunt tweeted, “I may disagree with some of the claims
of the march, but not ONE of them wants to live in a system where 28
million people have no cover. NHS may have challenges, but I am proud to
be in a country where all get care no matter the size of their bank
balance.”
James Ball of The Guardian decided that people in the United States need
to be schooled on the NHS. “The first thing Americans should know about
the NHS is that it is free at the point of use to anyone who needs it.
You do not have to fill out much paperwork, and you get no bills,
whether you go to a family doctor, or go to hospital. No one in the UK
goes bankrupt through medical costs, no one needs to delay treatment
until they can afford it, and virtually no one is uninsured. Nurses and
Doctors are the most trusted professions in the country.”
According to data collected by the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), the NHS spends half of what the
U.S. does on medical care, with much better outcomes.
U.S. single-payer campaigns
In the United States, the discussion and organizing around single-payer
health care is disparate, with no central demands, and often uses the
tactic of lobbying the Democratic and Republican parties in separate
states for a variety of different pieces of legislation.
The only concrete single-payer plan put forward is contained in a
congressional bill called Medicare For All, which envisions partial
government-financed health care for all U.S. citizens along the lines of
the current Medicare provisions for people over 65. The bill was
proposed in the Senate by Senator Bernie Sanders, and other prominent
liberal senators have spoken publicly in support. But no nationally
coordinated united-front mobilizations to support the measure have been
projected to date. And it should be noted that current Medicare contains
large gaps in funding for various services—often requiring seniors to
pay huge amounts of money out of pocket.
Moreover, it is doubtful that the two corporate parties will pass a bill
that eliminates health insurance companies. Two Democratic Party
senators have a competing proposal for what they call “Medicare X,”
which would provide government health coverage as only one option while
keeping private insurance offerings intact.
A movement to take the profit out of the U.S. health-care system can
only succeed if it is built around a clear demand, is rooted in the
working-class organizations, and is independent of the corporate
parties. It is an illusion that we can succeed by sitting in
politicians’ offices and merely “telling them our stories.” We need to
build a powerful movement demanding the health care we all deserve.
Photos: Health Campaigns Together
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February 27, 2018 in Britain, Health care, Uncategorized.
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