Seriously folks, can’t we expect that the people who write newspaper editorials understand the world they’re in? Even, manage to observe it? Possibly, even know how it has operated this past 73 odd years?
An invasion by US private health firms is under way, 30 years after these behemoths – many of them among the most profitable businesses in the world – first lobbied the Major government for access to the UK during the mid-1990s. Since February, the Centene Corporation has been in control of 58 GP practices serving almost 500,000 people. More deals are on the way – especially on new developments, where including a GP practice can swing a deal in a developer’s favour.
Campaigners claim this is “privatisation of the NHS by stealth”. They are not wrong.
Apparently not, no. GP practices have always been private sector. It isn’t possible to privatise something which is is already privatised. Something which, in fact, has never been state owned nor even state run.
The NHS is a de facto charity… how do you sell or buy a charity?
The government pays you to take it and then pays you to run it. Think of NGO’s.
How on earth do you sell something that needs beeeeeelllions poured into it every year?
The company that sold to Centene is called At Medics Limited. The owners of that presumably took something doing ok to something doing well enough to sell. And they can now invest in new medical practices if they so wish.
This is bad of course
Why do the Left spend vast amounts of time arguing about who owns it and almost no time at all arguing about whether it provides a decent service?