Boris Johnson may claim the NHS isn’t up for grabs in any US trade deal but a former doctor fears the Prime Minister won’t be able to stop himself flogging parts of our cherished institution to private firms and he’s warned that would lead to sky-high post-Brexit treatment and prescription prices as it is, forced open to profit-hungry drugs companies and health insurance monsters.
The more we’re assured that the NHS isn’t for sale, that the NHS won’t play any part in negotiations with the United States, the more we know it will because we’ve seen Boris Johnson’s dishonesty, so why would we expect him to be good to his word about anything?
And we shouldn’t accept that the NHS won’t be part of a trade deal because let’s face it, it’s a multi-billion-pound industry and he’s not going to be able to resist putting that on the table.
In June, Donald Trump declared to the world that the NHS would be on the table in any forthcoming negotiations with post-Brexit Britain, provoking speedy denials from a flustered Boris Johnson.
That could open the door for US pharmaceutical titans to charge the NHS excessive market prices for medications.
Currently, they’re kept at bay by checks and balances which ensure health service costs are a fraction of US market prices and the British health service is free for all, unlike the American system.
This would gradually lead to it becoming a model of the US health system where citizens pay high costs for health insurance, about £7,800 a head, compared to our estimated £2,500 through taxes and those who couldn’t afford that, could pay with their well-being or even their lives.
America has a somewhat different health care design to us and we should see it as a truly scary ghost of Christmas future and people die in the United States because they can’t afford medications.
And as soon as there’s a two-tier system, people who have the least will suffer the most and ultimately, if you reduce people’s access to healthcare it will cost lives.
Donald Trump is also attempting to discard his forerunner Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, brought in to assist poor American’s.
In the run-up to the referendum, Boris Johnson repeatedly claimed the NHS could get £350 million a week more following Brexit but the system has become increasingly strained and there are now more than 100,000 openings, 10,000 fewer junior doctors than we need and more than 30,000 nurses.
But it’s no longer only cuts or forced overtime which is creating an all-out crisis, it’s the imminent threat of a no-deal Brexit and the use of the divisive language coming from Westminster, led by Boris Johnson himself which is forcing EU and foreign national workers to quit the health service because they feel unwelcome.
This is leaving gaping holes which only deliver more pressure on those left behind and a skeletal system may simply not be able to cope with a winter health crisis this year.
The NHS is on such a knife-edge at the moment because the NHS is its staff and it’s spread thinner than it’s ever been.
Boris Johnson will eventually sell off our NHS to Donald Trump because those pair are more dangerous than Arthur Daly and if our NHS is sold off people in this country won’t be able to afford private health insurance which will put their families and themselves in terrible jeopardy.
This will be the fault of the Tories, yet ordinary working people will fall for this utter madness and if the selfish greedy Tory liars happen to get a majority the NHS is gone and the NHS belongs to the people but the selfish greedy Tory liars will sell it for quick cash for them and their wealthy cronies.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 