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Coronavirus Thread / Re: Coronavirus
« on: April 29, 2020, 09:29:34 AM »My main point is that having a coalition government has made it less of a political football for them than over here. But you're right about the German health system. Its well resourced. One statistic I remember from the start of this is they had 28,000 intensive care beds, which compared to about 4,000 here.
You're right that our more adversarial system makes it more difficult to build the consensus needed for long-term healthcare planning. Yet ultimately, I think our travails owe less to our politicians than to the general public. The truth is we put our leaders in an impossible position. They have known for decades, indeed since its very inception, that the NHS model has major flaws, flaws that have become increasingly exposed as the population has grown and aged. They essentially have two options:
A) Change the model (i.e to something more like the German system)
B) Soldier on with the NHS model and make it more sustainable financially (through major tax rises, focused more on wealth than income)
Our politicians are powerless as plumbing for either spells electoral evisceration. So all they can do is squabble over the size of sticking plasters and the precise configuration of deckchairs on the Titanic.
