UK Health Chief Quits as System Plunges into Financial Crisis
'Reformed' system faces $1.6 billion shortfall.
[Editor's note: This is the second in a series on health care reform issues in European countries Premier Campbell has visited.]
Only a day after Gordon Campbell celebrated the British health care delivery system as a source of model reforms for BC, the UK’s top health administrator has resigned amidst claims the system he shifted toward privatization and for-profit care over the last half decade was sinking into financial crisis.
Timing is everything in life and politics, and Gordon Campbell may already regret the timing of an interview he gave on Monday, March 6. Speaking to Vancouver Sun reporter Jeff Lee in London, Campbell expressed his interest in bringing British ideas back for possible application to the BC health care delivery system. He singled out for special mention the use of private-public partnerships in building and operating hospitals and in delivery of medical services.
Even before yesterday’s Sun was fish-wrap, the news out of the UK’s National Health Service had turned ugly. A headline in today’s Guardian trumpeted “NHS Chief Quits amid Worsening Cash Crisis.”
Sudden resignation
Yesterday the system’s chief executive, Sir Nigel Crisp, unexpectedly tendered his resignation. Angry critics www.keepournhspublic.com in the UK say that years of privatization have balkanized the NHS into a chaotic and inefficient patchwork of hospitals, trusts and specialized clinics pitted against each other in a needlessly elaborate scheme of internal markets and price competition.
An anonymous government source identified as a “senior Blairite” told the Guardian that NHS trusts would have to “swallow their own smoke next year” and cut services in response to the funding crisis.
The current crisis, which has British papers like the Guardian and the Independent predicting that the year-end deficit for the NHS could run as high as $1.6 billion dollars (Cdn.), is viewed as a political quagmire for the Blair government. Labour has poured record sums of money into the NHS during Crisp’s five-year term in power.
A health policy expert in the UK, interviewed by the Tyee last night says that the real lesson Campbell should bring back from his European tour is that it is impossible to deliver affordable and universal health care through market mechanisms.
Successes claimed
The government was eager to put Crisp’s departure in a different light. His retirement was attended by an announcement that the long time civil servant would be granted a life peerage, one of only 10 life Lords that Blair is entitled to name during this Parliament.
Patricia Hewitt, the UK’s health secretary, accused by the Tory opposition of making Crisp pay the price for her policy failures, told the Guardian that Crisp had served the NHS with great distinction.
“He has successfully led the health service through the first half of the government’s ambitious programme of investment and reform. This has secured the shortest waitng times in a generation, with more beds, more hospitals, more doctors and more nurses than ever before,” she said.
‘Mini-corporations’
Dr. Allyson Pollock is a researcher at University College London, and the Tyee reached her by phone last night in Edinburgh. She says that Crisp’s retirement is symptomatic of a system in terminal disarray.
“Under Blair,” she said, “the system has been loaded with more and more market mechanisms. Despite an unprecedented injection of funds, the NHS is now experiencing the same kind of meltdown that a disastrous privatization process brought to British railroads.”
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the British think tank the Kings Fund, agreed that the NHS was in real financial difficulties, although he pointed to some causes not tied to market style reforms.
“Sir Nigel has acknowledged that he shares responsibility for this as much as the real successes he helped deliver…But if he is responsible, so too are the politicians who oversaw the expensive new pay deals and the other changes that have helped to create the current pressures,” he told the Guardian.
‘Inherently destabilizing’
Pollock claims that the government has broken up the British public health system into hundreds of “mini-corporations” that have to compete with each other for patients and funds while servicing high cost debt created by the public-private partnerships favoured by the Campbell government .
British health care, she says, is being increasingly invaded by international for-profit health care delivery firms, and much of the new money Labour poured into the NHS in the last half decade has gone straight to the bottom line of these for-profit companies. For example, she said, the government chose to invest in the largest and most expensive computer system anywhere in the world outside of military installations, and still can’t get the new system to work to deliver clinical data doctors and administrators need to serve their patients.
“This privatization is inherently de-stabilizing,” she said. “Adding market mechanisms drives up administration costs. In the old NHS system, administration costs ran about 6 percent of budget. Earlier so-called reforms in the system doubled that cost to 12 percent. By now, in the wake of the creation of so many PFIs (Private Finance Initiatives- called P3s in North America) it is highly likely the administration costs are close to 20 percent of budget.
“The deficits and chaos at the top we’re seeing today is a direct result of the government’s disastrous decisions,” added Pollock. “Your government shouldn’t look to the current situation in the UK for models for change.”
Hospital construction stopped
Only a couple of weeks ago, the British government had suspended any further work on the controversial PFI hospitals pending a review on questions of affordability, according to Pollock.
“There is no evidence anywhere in the world, she said, “that universal health care can be delivered by the market. The real driver in all these changes is coming from American corporations who need new markets in order to survive profitably. This system is unraveling.”
Tom Sandborn is writing a series on European health care reforms with a focus on information the Premier may not have received on his recent visit. The series to date includes: The UK Health Care Briefing Gordon Campbell Isn't Getting ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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tommymoore
5 years ago
Comments on "UK Health Chief Quits as System Plunges into F
Yabutt Campbell will still claim that PROFIT IS THE CURE! Myriad insurers, a growing multitude of middle managers, redundancies sprouting up like toadstools after a rain - all this WILL MAKE HEALTHCARE BETTER! (for American corps). It's the neocon way - identify a market, then siphon as much money out of it as possible while allowing the impoverishment of the public system. Gordo must not be paying attention to the lessons learned in the UK.
sdgreen
5 years ago
The BC P3 is designed to just build the hospital, not operate it.
It seems everywhere,here, Europe, Asia, costs associated with healthcare are expanding at a rate more than what either governments or people can afford. That coupled with the global shortage of Doctors, Medical technicians and Nurses adds to the problem.
For sure the cost of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals is a factor, along with expensive labour costs.
At this point, all avenues need to be explored to find out more efficient healthcare delivery. This will require careful review and planning.
Even under our current BC system, healthcare is balkenized by the so-called health authorities. This system does not allow for cross platform standards, or deployment of resources where required.
The healthcare question is a difficult one.
allan
5 years ago
Isn't timing delicious sometimes?
G West
5 years ago
Just what I was thinking! Maybe there is a god.
Frank
5 years ago
sdgreen, a post without attacking unions? So unlike you...
jim beam
5 years ago
typical Campbell! sticks foot in mouth showing us that he truly has no idea whatsoever on what to do with the helth care problem.
campbell is a VACUOUS MORON that got into power by DEFAULT.he is no knight in shinning armour.we wanted the NDP out and this A$$HOLE was the only other option.SO DON'T THINK THIS MAN IS A GENIUS!
just listen closely to the statements coming out of this idiots mouth...he sounds more like ralph klein everyday.it's a good thing they both decided to SOBER UP...after all,they are in the public eye.
and we are listening...CLOSELY .
Coyote
5 years ago
Ohh! This is a bloody surprise!
Haywire rightwingnutter economic theories. They haven't worked since they were introduced in the late 70s. All they've ever done, in the hands of all the parties of capitalism, their willing enough handmaidens, is kill the only socio-economic model of capitalism that ever worked half decently-, the post WW2 "regulated and controlled" capitalism. And they continue even yet to deepen the crises within society and the economy, like they really know what they are doing, with all their false "know it all" bravdo, hot air and insistant looney, Fraser Pimpstitute socio-economic, "trickle down" theories.
Eh. False Gods are these-, from the age of the Industrial Revolution dinosaurs, still allowed to roam the planet and society, preying upong the weak, the vulnerable and the gullible.
Time to "put 'em down".
Burgess
5 years ago
It is a simple case of "our betters" (ALL past governments included) deciding what is best for us peons. How to 'cream' off the most dollars from the public purse for their own PERSONAL benefit and that of their friends. (Twinning the Port Mann, RAV - Classic scams) Why else do we have the salaries of the 'elite' paper pusher managers hitting six digit salaries starting with 3,4 and 5 while reducing service and wages. The present 'liberal' socred retreads are past masters at milking the public purse. Just check out the Adrian Raeside cartoons from the late '80s early 90s and substitue Campbell for the Zalm. The more things change the more they stay the same. Those who can do and those that can't go into politics and milk the public purse.
Bailey
5 years ago
There's no possible way that taking a large percentage of the money away from care and putting it to unrelated private uses can produce a better field of care. It's stupid thing to claim. It will make some "entrepreneurs" very rich, and impoverish first the system, then the taxpayers.
No mechanism for producing this claimed efficiency gain exists. The incentive is, to the contrary, to pump up your profit by increasing your claim on the taxpayer's purse.
It must, according to classical economic theory, lead to a spiraling rise in cost for a mirror image spiral downward of services.
Everybody understands this except those who expect to be the beneficiaries of all those excess costs.
Elliot
5 years ago
shameless fearmongering. blather on tyee.
The brain
5 years ago
Campbell is just another american sellout to get his family and friends rich. He'll push healthcare privatization through anyways, relying on misinformation, dimwitted memories and bought off media to ram it through. Anyone know what the price is for treason in this country? Let me guess... seven figure share income with an "honorable" title before the name.
Good article, Tom. Like the links.
Elliot
5 years ago
'Campbell is just another american sellout to get his family and friends rich.'
that's why he's making $120k/year instead of 3-500 in the private sector and has devoted over 20 years of his life to public service. what a moronic statement braindead.
thomas49
5 years ago
while Campbell serves the Public he makes CONTACTS just like his brother MICHEAL...they have been accused of a few deals gone wrong where people have lost money and surprise,surprise...they made money !
so anybody that thinks Campbell is ALTRUISTIC just look around BRITISH COLUMBIA and look at the problems that have somehow exploded in seriousness with the populace...BUT SOMEHOW THE CAMPBELLS ARE MAKIN MONEY.
IF ANYONE IS BRAINDEAD ELLIOT...TIS YOU
and when someones mother dies all alone with no family around cause of programs Campbell initiated...i think Campbell supporters should all go through that horror to see what the family felt.
CAMPBELL AND HIS ILK ARE SCUM
bob the cat
5 years ago
http://www.ppwclocal3.ca/
brain: heres some union stuff if you`re still interested. The 2004 convention report will give a lot of info financial and political. I wrote it and i`ve always hoped somebody might read it..i know none of the members did ;)
I think the ceo of our chamber of commerce "government" is a true blue psychopath. He just wings it..usually on the advice of brother mikey and fat face silverspoon blueblood gordo gibson and the fraser institute.
I had the opportunity at convention to have a quick chat with N.D.P. Carole James before the last election..i asked her "Is Gordon Campbell a psychopath?" she was kind of taken back and replied" Pretty close..pretty close"
I really think the guy is something special.
It really saddens me that the people of B.C. would entrust their Province..to a psycho.
cheers e
Burgess
5 years ago
Elliot
How do insults add to any debate?
Except to debase the insulter.
But then idiots comments like idiots faces
are always found in public places.
I saw that once written in a cement sidewalk next to some names scratched in the fresh pour.
Kind of like the way you post eh?
thomas49
5 years ago
there was a study in the media shortly after new year i think the timeline was.
it was about TRUE PYSCHOPATHS , and the study found that the best business people are in fact pyschopathic.
they have to be obsessive,single minded,without conscience...
sounds like Campbell,Klein,Harper,Chretien,Martin,et al
thomas49
5 years ago
just saw Campbell on the tube,was talking about how much benefit the sporting venues in Lillehammer a village of 25,000 people,brought in health and recreational benefits.
somehow i do not see proper ratio dispersment in monies to benefits ?
I wish somone could do the numbers and explain it to us,and if it sounds logical ? but i have a feeling the numbers won't stop the olympic juggernaut from completing it's task of either rebuilding or destroying BC.
and that is one of the mantras,we will benefit from the use of these fixtures in health dollars.using the sporting venues is going to make us strong and healthy,that is if we can get there and then pay for them,again.that's right the venues won't be free access citizen.
jwstewart
5 years ago
One thing that I always wondered about public .vs. private healthcare is:
...if not everyone individually can afford a certain standard of healthcare, how then can all collectively afford the same level of healthcare ?
It would seem to me that the only answers are: that those who can afford healthcare will pay more than the actual cost, or, that the standard of care would decrease.
Additionally, if private healthcare involves profit, then those that can afford it would obviously be paying in excess of the actual cost, a profit portion to the provider.
Therefore, since those who can afford care will be paying in excess of the actual cost whether the system is public or private, the morally superior position would be to support public healthcare which uses the excess fees to provide care to those who cannot afford it.
Would private healthcare therefore be "immoral" ?
Bailey
5 years ago
Last night on the box there was a repeat of "The Corporation" A documentary that makes a strong case that the largest, most pervasive and powerful institution we have left has become literally psychopathic according to standard diagnostic tests
How could this happen unless human psychopaths shaped and created corporations in their own image?
I point out that psychopaths typically don't believe that other people really feel those things they themselves are incapable of.
Coyote
5 years ago
Come on Elliot, instead of these one line grunts and hot air popcorn farts into the wind, I'm waiting to see you attempt a serious analysis in defence of your wingnutter socio-economic theories. Something we can get our intellectual teeth into collectively, instead of this mere gnashing of teeth, snapping and snarling at each other, around this Cheyne Stoke breathing, dying carcass of capitalism
It's a difficult think for a simple "believer" of any faith based system to do, I understand, who has never really worked upon and developed his own rationale, but instead has merely bought into somebody elses, and some other social classes analysis and rationalization. But give it a go. It will assist your development beyond your current intellectual walking on all fours level of understanding and debate.
And even if not that, it will make you a better and more lucid rightwingnutter, whom we will have to treat more seriously, instead of us all out here just laughing at you. (Look what it has done for Colin and one or two others of your Fraser Pimpstitute class.)
I'm certainly not going to hold my breath waiting though. 8-D
But isn't it though.
There are rumours that sdgreen is even to be seen backpedalling rather skillfully upthread. This I gotta see. 8-D
jim beam
5 years ago
jwstewart,doesn't understand how our health system works.and for that matter neither do a lot of people that go to the well to get water/services.
it is a collective folks,we all put in as much as we can afford and when(we REALLY NEED IT) used,we are all supposed to be TREATED THE SAME.that in a nutshell is what the PREMISE was.it was a compromise.like WORKERS COMPENSATION and if you want to see a system that ponies up to the right wing check out WORKERS COMPENSATION and the SHELL GAMES THEY PLAY WITH THE INJURED WORKERS.funny how the slaves are kept healthy and working for those out of country business'owners who don't respect our laws.YET WE HEAR NOT A WORD ABOUT THE HORRORS OF THAT SYSTEM.
those collective ideas would work if properly executed.but the monies skimmed off are too excessive and the system first falters,sputters and then fails.
when i am allowed to bring my parents in from another country and give them expensive health care after a short period of time is RIDICULOUS.
you were in line first ,you get care first,i was in line second,i get care second,your child has a life threatening illness,that child is taken care of,etcetra.real simple.
but again people DIDDLE THE SYSTEM,so if someone really needs help?it's a collective,WE should DECIDE as Canadians.
SO REMEMBER THIS IS A BENEFIT TO ALL WHO PAY INTO BY THEIR WORKING AND LIVING HERE...
bob the cat
5 years ago
Collective? Common Good?...quick let me readjust my blinders!
good `un jimmy beams...
The W.C.B. is now WorkSafe B.C.?
my wife came home from the Fed Convention in tears recently...apparently some of the loggers had broken down at convention..conditions...the deaths and maimings..later that afternoon our pert miss
Carole Taylor was congratulating herself on "cleaning up the regulations"
bob the cat
5 years ago
the horror...the horror
G West
5 years ago
but she has made a wonderful investment in shoes - you have to give her that - fiscal propriety at all costs.
bob the cat
5 years ago
yes..well the former beauty queen..still quite a dish you gotta admit in those uplift bras...great cleavage....shes a big westerner now..tough talkin` free bootin` alberta momma..she knows how to pull `erself up by the ole...ah..gucci straps.
jim beam
5 years ago
This post has been removed because it only contained insulting content.
Tyee Site Manager
burner
5 years ago
elliot, you must be on crack.
politics is almost totally devoid of public servants.
gordo 'serves' his own ego.
thomas49 pointed out the contacts he makes now will make him fabulously wealthy in the future, while making the contacts wealthier now.
think how much better off we would be if gordo took the '3 - 500k' from the private sector (where his record is mediocre at best).
he will not be deterred by the events in britain, as he has already made up his mind for us.
he will do the thing that benefits gord and his friends.
G West
5 years ago
Smiles all round. She's the chosen one all right. Beamer, who writes your material? Next thing you know somebody will suspect they're practicing polyandry in the Leg. Shame on you.
bob the cat
5 years ago
polyandrous Bot. having the stamens indefinitely numerous
shame on you too G.
BC Dude
5 years ago
How is it that we have all this $ to send our troops & obsolete USA/Brit (subs) equipment to Afghanistan on a suicide mission & no $ for our health care, schools, etc
How will Gordo explain to the BC taxpayers the benefits UK health system?
"What Goes Round Comes Round"
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
It's laughbale how the slightest prospect of advance sends the looney left's hearts aflutter. How does a $1.6 billion dollar deficit spell doom to the Health Care system? Canada spends about $140 billion a year on our Health Care system. Oh, that we could brigde the gap between our pathetic perforamance and a legitimate system for $1.6 billion.
Colin
5 years ago
Well if the Fed Liberal could have used the now expected figure of 3 billion spent on the gun registry on increase the monies to the provinces for healthcare, it would not solve all the problems but it would have saved more lives.
If you want to understand Gordon a bit better, you should read up on his family history, a bit sad actually.
Coyote
Sorry, but I have never been on the Fraser Institute Christmas card list.
I always thought it was funny that people use dinosaurs as an example of a failure, yet they were around longer than we have been here and their legacies live on.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
noleftnutter
Doesn't sound much like a "prospect of advance" to me..... Oh really?
You haven't been paying attention again, have you? If you had, you might have noticed this:
So you don't think a shortfall of similar magnitude in our health care system would be a crisis - especially when the British reforms - as are those being bruited about here - were meant to save money; but then, as others have noted severally and often, you're not really worth the time it takes to point you to the door.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Colin
I have plenty of compassion for the premier's personal history. What I can't understand is how, given that background, he comes across as totally devoid of any human feeling and empathy for anyone other than his friends and family. That's a real mystery.
Elliot
5 years ago
This post has been removed because it only contained insulting content.
Tyee Site Manager
jim beam
5 years ago
there are those of us that know CAMPBELLS COMPLETE HISTORY,and it's sad to say,too bad daddy campbell didn't leave this mortal coil before he helped spawn those two cretins ,mikey and gordo...
we wouldn't have people dieing and being ignored like the recent stories in the media...
you have your elderly mother die alone somewhere unknown to you but just down the road ?
and how about those 712 children?
so i say again with no empathy whatsoever,to bad daddy campbell didn't go sooner and then we wouldnt be having this conversation.
then again...gordo and mikey ,are a good example for those pro abortion.
jesterjogger
5 years ago
What's happened in the forest thanks to that filth gordo and especially emer$on, that @#$%^& a$$whole, is a f'n disgrace. The first thing sacrificed to deliver more profit for the multi-national forest destroyers was safety for the workers. That's why there was the spike in accidents since the forest practices code was turned on it's head by gordo and his big campaign contributors represented by the snake emer$on.
So what did these two murderers get for their trouble? One was re-elected premier(thanks canwest goebbel and our own tax advertising money) and the other, after collecting a multi-million dollar golden handshake, went on to be a big minister in the federal government.
(all we get is a golden shower)
And now he gets to screw us, the working people, from the goverment side of things!!
Those cumbersome safety "regulations" in the mining industry are just a bunch of red tape!!
Gotta get our resources to china so they can be proceesed into walmart goods for our local slave-labor product distribution centers.
Gordo and emer$sons globalization: if those workers have no safety regulations why should ours?
Re healthcare imagine in a few years when a logger gets hurt cuz of these aforementioned slashs to safety regulations only to collect a 30000$ hospital bill.
Welcome to the new era!!
jim beam
5 years ago
This post has been removed because it only contained insulting content.
Tyee Site Manager
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
I'll try and keep it simple. Of course, it's just repeating what I already said -
Oh, that we could brigde the gap between our pathetic perforamance and a legitimate system for $1.6 billion.
Hard of hearing are we Alcibiades?
Elliot
5 years ago
This post has been removed because it only contained insulting content.
Tyee Site Manager
G West
5 years ago
NoLeftNutter
You really are a piece of dull stuff. The point is, simply, that the Brits have bastardized their system in the way the right wingers in this country suggest we should do here. They've been at it for years and now the chickens are coming home to roost. That's the lesson for Canada. Bang your head a little harder on the wall, maybe you'll eventually get it.
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
Oh, I get it alright. All of those other options out there are too scary to discuss. Let's preserve the status quo...hail Romanow.
jim beam
5 years ago
This post has been removed because it only contained insulting content.
Tyee Site Manager
G West
5 years ago
NoLeftNutter
This from someone who admits he hasn't read the report, spare me!
As I said elsewhere, go do your homework - I've got work to do and you're spoiling my lunch.
Coyote
5 years ago
"I always thought it was funny that people use dinosaurs as an example of a failure, yet they were around longer than we have been here and their legacies live on." Colin.
Yes, you are correct Colin, and I concede you at least a partial rhetorical point, but the vast numbers of them are still extinct, and were incapable of making the adjustment to the changed environmental conditions following the "great catostrophe". And it is those particular Neocon "dinosaurs" of which we speak here.
These being the ones which proved incapable, for whatever reason, of making "the adjustment", such as evolving into birds etc.
The slave owning class within human society were around for some thousand or more years as well, and sre still with us as modern capitalists also, but as a particular class they are extinct. Now we are on the cusp of another time of changed and changing conditions, and one of the questions of it is,
will they emerge as a "similar" species in a new form, making the adaptation, or will they be superseded by some small, seemingly insignificant creature scurrying around in the underbrush of their ruling time on earth, who will seize the opportunities that pass to it as a consequence of the old species order's passing?
We shall have to see. :-)
But you see Elliot, it is possible for one of the "rightist" ideological persuasion to come in here, actually make a fairly valid point, and force us, even myself, to treat him with some seriousness. You, on the hand, but a bellowing dinosaur echo from the ancient past (Having established to which ones we refer.), while we may study and probe you as a relic or intellectual curiosity, for what it has to teach us about such a primitive life form's thinking, we otherwise find it too easy to just ignore you, and leave you in a museum drawer here somewhere. :-)
bob the cat
5 years ago
This post has been removed because it only contained insulting content.
Tyee Site Manager
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
G West - I took you advice and looked at the executive summary. You can find it here -
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/pdf/romanow/pdfs/HCC_Executive_Summary.pdf
As expected is was long on suggestions and short on substance and specifics and of course little information about costing. All in all, very status quo. I did notice though that at the end of chapter 8 Romanow suggests that informal care givers be allowed to take time off work and qualify for special benefits.Something I understand that Gordo, the Anit-Christ, has introduced as new legislation.
I'm glad I only read the summary, chastise me if you will for taking the more effecient way out. Who's you Daddy now???
G West
5 years ago
You have to read it all. That's like trying to get through law school by reading nothing but headnotes...you miss the pith and substance.
Like I said I'll talk to you in a month.
Colin
5 years ago
Honkies
Man I haven’t heard that since tie-die t-shirts and platform shoes.
bob the cat
5 years ago
This post has been removed because it only contained insulting content.
Tyee Site Manager
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
Hi Bob - I only got one left too. The other one was taken by Glen Clark's adminstration when I had no more money to give. I still have Joyless Macphailures teeth marks if you want to see them sometimes.....
Coyote - LOL.
jim beam
5 years ago
hey ! lets not start gettin bigoted here now.
theres a difference between honkies and honkys...just ask hunky bill
anybody got some acid man ?
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
Sorry to say that any impact of the Romanow report is declining evry day and I'm not going to make any greater effort to understand it - The current provincial and federal administrations have made it obsolete and no amount of referencing it on the Tyee is going to make it relevant again.
bob the cat
5 years ago
nutso..ya forgot "fast ferries" lets do fastferries..
(coyotes gonna like this one..think I hear `im paddin` up the waddi now)
Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks the whip. But the really well-trained dog is the one that turns somersaults when there is no whip.
- George Orwell
mcdull
5 years ago
Hold it you guys all make it sound like the premier is interested in BC. Not likely as how many days has he been at parliament since the election. Hardly noticeable. He is the absentee landlord. Michelle Jean is more important.
jim beam
5 years ago
bob the cat...you are just too well read for this crowd...
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
Bob - whatever holy grail floats your boat....
G West
5 years ago
noleftnutty
Since you haven't got the necessary attention span to read the whole of the Romanow report perhaps you can manage to get through this:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20060306.html
Colin
5 years ago
He also wrote:
"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
Of course if you are feeling just a bit to cheerful, you can read: Down and out in Paris and London
bob the cat
5 years ago
Colin: I`ve never been real comfortable in large Restaurants after reading "Down and Out"
I never fail to understand the bitterness and anger of the right...they`ve got everything...they`ve got all the guns at least all the big guns...they`ve got the money supply...the land..they make the rules..why are they so pissed all the time?
jesterjogger
5 years ago
Bob the Cat
Hey where did that Orwell quote come from?
Elliot
5 years ago
the romanow report? what a bloody joke that was. let's hire a washed-up ndp'er to tell us what to do with health care: answer - keep everything the same but spend much more money on the union workforce. gee, what a surprise that was.
one thing i know for sure about the campbell's is that they have more humanity than any of you burned-out lefty crybabies do.
i also know that gordo's party will win the next election hands down. and the next one, and the next one, and....
oilbertan
5 years ago
A couple of points.
I see lots of anger and hate here but no suggestions of how to fix the problem other than read some report.
It is my understanding that we spend more per capita on health care than any of the other OECD countries yet we rank well down the list in terms of performance so I don't think throwing more money at it is the answer. Besides, in my experience (admittedly minimal and confined to Alberta) the money would just get eaten up by the bean counters (administrators) who pull down the 6 figure salaries (by the way what ever happened to the old style of civil service where they took less salary than the private sector in return for better pensions and service to their country?) when we need more doctors and nurses and more current equipment.
I live in northern Alberta, 500 miles north of Edmonton (think latitude Fort St John for those in BC). We are so short of doctors that the local clinic no longer accepts walk in patients and directs them to emergency where they wait forever.
Here are a couple of suggestions:
1. As there are options available to those with $ (USA), why not allow private clinics for MRI's or in fact private hospitals with the caveat that by jumping the que you pay the full shot yourself. Should lessen demand to some extent and shorten waiting lists.
2. I regularly hear complaints from those graduating university that they are saddled with large debts for their educations, yet they only pay roughly 25% of the actual cost of the education. Why not give students an option a) pay the full shot yourself (ok, get Dad to pay it) or b) have the government pay the full shot but in return you have to go and work where the government dictates for a like number of years. So a doctor with 7 years (?) education paid in full by the taxpayer would then have to go to the area the government sends them to and work there for 7 years. They would still make a boat full of money and rural and northern areas wouldn't be left without adequate care. This can be used for virtually all degrees as there is a shortage of workers in most fields in most locales.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
G West
5 years ago
Personally, it's a passage in the 'Road to Wigan Pier' that always got me:
"At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had the time to see everything about her - her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye...in which I saw...the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that 'It isn't the same for them as it would be for us,' and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her - understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe."
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
G West - well, I read it and considering the backround of the writer and the misinformation I came away duly unimpressed....Two-tier health care already exists, private for profit health care already exists, queue jumping in the health care system alrady exists.
I think that some type of reform is necessary to improve the system. We don't make much progress in understanding or discussing what kind of reforms may improve the system when we're stuck in the ill informed rhetoric like that of that article.
I do agree with one point though - Jack Layton's silence on this matter is deafening....
Colin
5 years ago
Bob
I know exactly what you mean.
Jesterjogger
For my quote (it had been so long since I first saw it, I had to google it):
http://www.orwelltoday.com/readerriflequote.shtml
also check here:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_orwell.html
bob the cat
5 years ago
jogger...its quoted in "A War Against Truth" by Paul William Roberts...a mighty book... Roberts (Canadian) was in Baghdad for "Shock and Awe" (I live in Squamish too..maybe I know `ya..if you wanted to borrow it i`d drop it off..but its probably in the library.
I don`t know which of Orwells works its from..maybe GWest could help out there..
moonbeam: bob the cat...you are just too well read for this crowd...
Actually I`m not that well read..i read a lot of reviews, magazines and stuff ..try to keep up with whats happening...since hangin` `em up after a career as a grail knight I`ve been meaning to read more..y`know Moby Dick and stuff..War and Peace...Dostoevsky..
I have Wigan Pier but have yet to read it..G`s passage from it has me really choked up right now..
I`m gonna be away from here for awhile..gotaa bad drug habit to kick..wish me luck Comrades
Venceremos
bob
jesterjogger
5 years ago
Just heard that theres gonna be a 'ground-breaking' ceremony at the south false creek olympic village tommorrow(i think)
Anyhow gordo, emer$on and i assume that pr!ck sullivan will be there BUT the general public IS NOT invited. Ha!! How fitting is that.
The rabble aren't invited for the party just for the payments!
(this ceremony will probably cost as much as that peace conference the npa wants to cancel!!a$$wholes!!)
Emer$on protesters should head over there.
These ba$tards are slapping us in the face!!
He doesn't have the guts to show his two-faces in public but he'll be at the private, YET tax-payer funded ceremony re the olmpic village/next elitist expensive condo development.
Watch out though people, i hear theres gonna be a ton o' blue shirts just itchin' to bust some skulls and baton-check some teeth!!
Now that's democracy!!!!
jim beam
5 years ago
oh jesterjogger, U iz sech a kard !
those blue shirtz iz jes there case ya need directions home,eh...
c'mon don't take it sew hard U wuzn't invited,we gotta keep the party small cause it's gonna save us sum monies.sides ya probably live in the fartlands an iz too farway,eh.
sew jes send a chek please an stop yer wine in.
love gordo...and dave sez high too,eh.
allan
5 years ago
Oilbertan, if you live that far north in Alberta, good chance Ralphie's onto you're voting Liberal or NDP so don't hold your breath for a new doctor arriving unless one
gets lost on the way to Jasper or something.
Elliot, Romanov wrote the report for the federal Liberals. Gordo's a provincial Liberal.
Try to get through your next post without getting so confused.
Noleftnutter, I think Jack Layton's cued up to talk about David (I'll promise them anything) Emerson when Parliament reopens, but I'm sure if your man Stephen doesn't have his hands full and does wish to raise health care that Layton'll be talking.
Hey, that missing nut of yours, I'm sure someone cashed it in to help pay for that silly lawsuite your buddies launched against Clark way back when you thought he was cooking the books.
Maybe the judge who threw all those partesan charges out kept it as a reminder of just how demented some people really are.
Seems like someone was cooking and smoking something else when they opted for that legal-fest.
Bob-the-cat, good luck and remember you've got a few lives left yet pal.
G West
5 years ago
Colin:
I think the rifle quote, while interesting, has been slightly overused by the gun lobby in the US hasn’t it - entirely out of context? It was written, I think, when Orwell was trying to get a bunch of wild men and potential troublemakers into the Home Guard during the war and it’s been a controversial subject for Orwell scholars too.
bob the cat:
Not sure about your quote - its source I mean. I'll page through the collected works to see if I can find it - it certainly sounds like Orwell but I can't ever remember him using the word 'pissed'. There are excisions of course so it may be difficult to find. Also, my edition is the original and not the new edition of the complete works that came out in, I think, 2000, so I may well not have the reference at hand.
Umslopogaas
5 years ago
"...that's why he's making $120k/year instead of 3-500 in the private sector."
Elliot who would pay gordo 3-500 in the private sector? Please provide a list of likely employers.
That is so funny.
jtothemfk
5 years ago
said it before and i'll keep saying it: the fact that a man or woman chooses politics is no indication in itself his/her dedication to the public good. That's a joke and so simplistic it's outrageous. Honestly, take a hike if you believe that. For many of the wealthy class, it's just a notch on the belt, an aphrodisiac, a huge ego kick. Campbell can regale his chums with sordid tales of his years as head of the provincial government. and tho' his peeps will get bored yet feign interest, he'll always have Victoria...
as others have noted above, it's the connections, as well... the ol' mutual palm greasing immediately followed by the ol' circle jerk.
That some solution and progressive "out of box" thinking is necessary to tame our health care leviathan is not in doubt, but that solution will NOT come out of the private sector. Name an issue that affects ALL people to an equal degree that is managed for the good of the people but with profit in mind and I have a wonderful bridge to sell you... the one between your ideology and reality
jim beam
5 years ago
This comment has been removed for containing insulting subject matter only.
Tyee Site Manager
G West
5 years ago
Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
jim beam
5 years ago
GEEZE WEST ! yer behind da timez der guy,its 2006 now,nod 1984, an dat newzspeek iz all dun wid cause wee gots dis internet thingy an we kan say anything exceptin LIBEL US OR SLANDER US...
exceptin sites dat are OWNED...I iz still wondering howz a site owned by single ownerz...cause the medium dat dis internetty thingy passes true, is owned by alla us out here inna country.
no problemo,weeze tryin ta get a supremo kourt ruling on freedoms of da peeples speach.
an i no just the chains ta yank fer a pro boner legal guy ta make iz naim inna legal paperz.
down to the right winged whatchamacallit
sew much fer dat doublespeak...eh ?
rosetti
5 years ago
Hey Umslopogaas
Kinder Morgan or CP would be happy to give Campbell a job. Not for the 300 Large, but a directorship for 75 G's US. How many Liberal politicians, while they were officiating the sale of BC's legacy, were working on future directorship with these multi-nationals?
Elliot
5 years ago
'Elliot who would pay gordo 3-500 in the private sector? Please provide a list of likely employers.'
are you kidding me umslopogas? you're not really that out of touch with reality, are you? i know most of you lefties are, but please get real at least once in a while. $120k is peanuts for a man of his talents. he makes less than some high school principals, and i know a few of those that aren't worth a pinch of coon shite.
G West
5 years ago
talents????
jim beam
5 years ago
elliot,your buddy gordo has less talent than any other premier of the province,except for rita johnson.
vander zalm had a thriving business beforehand.
bennet had family money and a political legacy,also the best premier this province had since his daddy IMHO
clark was a joke,but he's working for pattison
dosanjh was a joke,but ? a liberal ?
rita johnson ...gimmee a break !
gordon campbell,present premier and not impressing anyone but the EXTREME RIGHT WING...MAKING CONTACTS THOUGH
SO ! if this guy is so smart how come he isn't working for those employers that would pay him the fortune you say he is worth ?
i remember the court battle about the investments that the brothers campbell somehow made money on when everybody else lost money...
yet mikey still works as a financial advisor at CKNW...AND LIKE THE SAYING GOES,THOSE THAT CAN'T TEACH...
so gordo was a teacher cause he couldn't do anything else...and mikey is a financial advisor that gives advice that most investors in bc that know his history would ignore.
boy ELLIOT,your friends are as BRIGHT as you,or as dim,i guess that would depend on the light.
and next time you whine to the editor/david beers say hello for me and tell him i emailed your/his complaints to all i know here on the board,so they are making the rounds...to show what a pussy site this really is when crap like you spreads your foul odour and FREE SPEECH is censored.