The biggest problem with that whole "but corporations are just groups of people" argument is that those people already have a vote and the ability to donate to campaigns if they choose. Allowing "corporations" to contribute funds or otherwise support a candidate is really just giving the people who run it additional means to influence the political process.
Are the corporations voting?
Are they getting one vote for every employee?
Are they casting those votes for the employees?
Are their contributions made in place of the contributions of individual employees?
Since the answer to all of those is "no", your complaint fails utterly in having any merit.
Then you get BS like that ruling that allows businesses to contribute however much they want, under the guise of "free speech"--allowing execs to not only donate twice, (once with their personal funds, and once with their corporation's) but also to completely ignore the normal campaign contribution limits.
As opposed to the BS of telling people they cannot spend their money however they see fit, including support of candidates?
Or the BS of forcibly extracting money from people for the support of candidates they may completely oppose?
And clearly it is even more horrible if people are able to pool their money, using a corporate structure to manage it, in order to more directly express their views on issues.
Clearly freedom of speech and politics must be utterly suppressed to prevent such abominations!
Instead of random employers. Someone, at some point, picks a value. Government or not, it makes no difference. At least you've accepted that Hunt's the problem, which was my entire original point.
No, instead of specific individuals.
Because, you know, you are allowed to seek whatever employment you like, and pick and choose between available employers; you aren't bound to a particular task or a particular employer like a serf or member of a caste.
I'll just replace 'state' with 'company', then. It's a fucking wage negotiation. Pointing fingers at nationalisation as the culprit does nothing.
See above.
You can replace it, but it remains a false equivalency.
You can choose your employer, choose your insurer, even choose your doctor, as opposed to letting the government do one or more of them.
... because that's not the original point I was making. It was an explanation for why the hell this negotiation is happening. I'm not supporting the idea of 24/7 full service.
It is the problem with limited service as well.
You still need to control the costs, which means limiting services, which means people just have to deal with not being allowed to get health care unless permitted by a government agent.
So, most healthcare anyway. Public transport. Water supplies. Telecommunications in the end. The 'nationally owned' part is again irrelevant.
No, not most health care. It is quite possible to be able to choose your doctor and insurer independent of an employer or government.
Public transport of course no, as that is inherent in the "public" name. But you can choose between that, semi-private cabs (depending on the licensing laws of where you are at - they could be a government controlled monopoly or oligarchy), more private cabs - like Uber, your own car, or even your own bicycle or feet.
Water supplies can be private. Where they are public, they are subject to severe government caused disruptions, such as in California.
Telecommunications are almost completely private except for some minor government oversight in regards to general bandwidth in the U.S., and the competition has worked wonderfully in advancing service and technology.
Overall, the "nationally owned" part is highly relevant to the quality and cost of the service.
... sooooo, that doesn't seem like the financial part to you? Because it looks like the financial part. Set up a fund for things that aren't deemed cost-effective by the part of the NHS that deals with drugs, remove it again in an ideological drive to reduce spending. This is in no way different from the private sector and normal accountancy. Though hey, the private sector exists.
It is both the financial part AND the treatment part.
The two are inextricably intertwined, no matter how much you don't want to recognize it.
This is quite different from the private sector and normal accountancy, as you made it clear that the government doesn't need to show a profit or have other responsibilities.
... what are you not getting about the 24 part? This is a desire to have equality of service on 1PM Monday and 3AM Sunday. It's not going to happen, especially not with those spending attitudes. I'd support the full seven days a week thing, but the government has this obsession with the deficit...
Oh I'm clear about it. It is just so absurd. Of course it is pretty much an inevitable consequence of the entitlement mentality derived from an entitlement system - you wind up with people so selfish that they must have their least whims treated as absolutely mundane requests, then either pay them off or deal with the consequences of saying "no" to them.
And yes, government's should have an obsession with the deficit.
Throwing more money at it could actually solve the problem in this case, courtesy of the outbidding thing (and not having this problem where way too many UK-trained doctors emigrate)
You mean someone is outbidding you as I noted as an option?
That's what you get.
and having an independently issued currency.
Which you won't have for long if your government doesn't pay attention to that deficit you were so dismissive of.
Unless the market loses complete faith in the government's ability to service its debts, then yes, an increase in spending on healthcare is entirely possible.
Like when the government stops being obsessed about the deficit?
So would be raising taxes.
Leaving people with less money for food, clothing, and shelter.
When the issue's paying for something like this is being, then it can be done.
At what cost?
What will you give up for it?
Skipping over the 'data is interpreted' point because THAT's a dead end and would just lead to 'needs a study into it': yes, I'm sure it's politically driven that a report slightly less than halfway through the last parliament found an objective difference in death rates on days of the week.
I'm not skipping over it, I'm just not going to fight over how to interpret it.
When nothing significant electorally was happening, not to be majorly acted on for years. And had a theory about the reason why that is totally different from the current government's actions three years later. And this is somehow related to a government monopoly (not that it actually has a monopoly; private healthcare and insurance are there)
Last I heard, going private meant getting dumped to the bottom of the line by the NHS. That's not particularly "free market", and the government control remains close enough to monopoly status to be described that way.
Indeed that is the main selling point of a "single payer system" here - that it will be completely, and "properly", controlled by just the government.
You're sounding like a conspiracy theorist, here.
What conspiracy theory?
I'm describing simple economic effects caused by simple government policies.
It sounds like you just want to play word games to avoid having to acknowledge that the flaws in the system you have are caused by the system itself, and not by some government appointee "conspiring" against you with the shadowy corporations.