Katie Hopkins on the NHS

Former Apprentice contestant Katie Hopkins argues that people who eat, drink and smoke more than is good for them should pay more towards the NHS health care they need, as she sets out her calls for additional payments for some health services.

Katie Hopkins is a cretin.

Smokers pay more taxes. Drinkers pay more taxes. If we eat, drink and smoke to excess, we will die younger, avoiding the cost of extended geriatric care.

And, bottom line here, universal coverage that is free at point of use is just that, universal. We all pay in. Some draw out more than others, irrespective of their lifestyles. I object to paying for other peoples’ fertility treatment, for example as this is not an illness and should no more be paid for out of my taxes than  sex change operations –  maybe those people should be forced to pay more, eh?

That’s the point of universal provision, though. You don’t change the rules because you don’t like some folks’ lifestyles.

We need to strip away this safety net. Stop the government providing a free pass to medical care – and make people pay for their poor choices.

This is called privately funded healthcare –  we take out our own insurance. If that’s what you want, say so.

On the one hand, Hopkins talks about taking responsibility for our lifestyles and on the other appears to be in favour of such egregious nonsense as fat taxes. If she really thinks that we should pay for our sins, why not go the whole hog and propose a dissolution of the NHS, where the smokers and drinkers fund the sex-changers and the test-tube babies? Is it because actually, she is just another socialist who thinks it is her place to dictate to others how they live their lives?

If so, Katie Hopkins, go fuck yourself with the rough end of a pineapple.

36 Comments

    • Never having watched it and never planning too, I had no idea who this woman was until I saw the article. I cannot say that my life has been illuminated by the revelation.

  1. The BBC private health care plan.
    Of course……….

    Some have suggested that a possible factor explaining BBC indifference is that many BBC staff donโ€™t themselves depend on the NHS. The BBC actually spends millions of pounds on private healthcare for its staff. Under a Freedom of Information request, it was revealed that the BBC shelled out almost ยฃ2.2 million of public money on private healthcare for several hundred senior BBC staff between 2008-2010.

    http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=678:people-will-die-the-end-of-the-nhs-part-2-buried-by-the-bbc&catid=25:alerts-2012&Itemid=69

  2. Well she has a point. A huge amount of demand for NHS resources are for self inflicted problems. The NHS was designed to take away the problems for people having unexpected health problems. The creators would not have expected people to have become so unprepared to take any personal responsibility for their actions, whether that is illegal drug use, over eating, excessive alcohol use, lack of exercise etc etc.

    The situation has arisen now where people who take responsibility for their own health, by and large, avoid using the NHS. And still pay handsomely for the privilege of not using it. But when such a person does have an unavoidable injury, or disease/complaint they could not reasonably have done anything to prevent, they find the NHS is unable to treat them properly, because the resources are being consumed by those who take no care for their health whatsoever.

    I do not think this is a fair, or sustainable, situation. The NHS principle (free care at the point of need) is predicated on everyone having a roughly equal need for its services, just spread randomly. Ie the chance of getting non-smoking related cancer for example is pretty equal for everyone. You can’t increase you chances (or reduce them) by your actions (other than smoking, which as you rightly point out, is heavily taxed, and more than pays for the extra NHS costs). But that is no longer the case. The demand for NHS services is skewed massively to the sections of society who take little care of their health whatsoever, and also pay in little in the way of taxes either.

    Unfortunately this is the consequence of having a socialist system that removes personal responsibility and replaces it with a universal ‘right’. The NHS only worked for a few decades because socialism hadn’t permeated through society, there were enough people who were in charge from the pre war era to prevent its spread. Once you got the post war generation (born and bred in socialism) the cancer soon spread through the entire system.

    The NHS is a socialist organisation, and as such is doomed to collapse. Given it took 70 years for the USSR to die, I reckon the NHS will be about done at some point in the 2020s.

    • OK Jim, fine, so let’s at once stop all treatment for people who ride horses, climb mountains, ski, or travel about other than on the bus. We’ll also save by refusing to treat all on benefits and muslims of any form due to consanguinous relationships.n Oh, and the Joos….Jooooooossss, bacause, well, it just fits in so well and their probably unhealthy some way or another, those big hats probably give you neck strain.
      The NHS will have plenty of time and money to treat the righteous then!

      • It would be quite feasible to demand people take out insurance for all those activities. I see no reason why the council house flat dweller should subsidise the countryside brigade’s horse riding fetish.

        Society is no longer as homogeneous as it was at the time of the NHS’s inception. The concept of social insurance across a complete population no longer has the same degree of fairness. No-one else in the world has seen fit to copy the NHS, and its not surprising why.

          • Precisely – that is exactly what the NHS is about – universal care irrespective of need or cause. We all pay in. Some are nett contributors. I am, despite being a lifelong motorcyclist. ๐Ÿ˜ˆ

          • Personally, I think Jim is making excellent points.

            LR is right, Katie Hopkins could very well be a cretin if she believes the NHS will survive under her suggestion, but it won’t. Just one successful judgement for a drinker or smoker who has paid ‘the stamp’ for decades on the understanding that the state would provide healthcare, and the refunds due would make PPI claims look like pocket money. The NHS would collapse overnight.

            It’s why I love it when idiots use this argument, and why those in the NHS shift very uneasily in their seats. ๐Ÿ™‚

            Of course, she could be playing a clever game and actually want that outcome. What better way to do it than by pretending to be a fan of the NHS?

          • I don’t disagree with many of Jim’s points. However, we are where we are and National Insurance was set up to be just that; insurance that covered us for universal healthcare provision. That it is broken is not down to fatties, smokers or drinkers. It is down to a flawed premise in the first instance. That we are all the same and would need much the same care over the course of our lives. The whole thing is more like a Ponzi scheme than insurance, unfortunately. However, having paid in, I do not expect to have to pay extra because of lifestyle choices retrospectively.

            The solution is a dissolution of the whole edifice and let us pay premiums based upon risk. That would be interesting…

          • Agree entirely, LR. I was saying much the same thing.

            The response from Philip Hammond and Emily Thornberry was on Daily Politics was very telling. For a political class who are constantly telling us all how we are bankrupting the NHS by making the ‘wrong’ choices, they are champing at the bit to knock this proposal on the head in double quick time.

            They know very well that the ‘cost to the NHS’ meme is one of the most prevalent lies told by politicians, and it is very disturbing for them when someone like Hopkins takes it to its logical conclusion. I love it!

          • Its not insurance in any way. There is no freedom to opt out if you don’t think what you are getting is worth the premium. There is no freedom to say I’ll take a higher excess, and pay a lower premium. There is not right to treatment, having paid the premium and be in need of care. You have zero rights to care at all. You just get thousands taken off you and nothing by legal right in return. If a private insurer did that they’d (rightly) be shut down in 5 minutes.

            And less of the insults please, just because I dare to question the State religion of the NHS.

      • XX OK Jim, fine, so letโ€™s at once stop all treatment for people who ride horses, climb mountains, ski, or travel about other than on the bus.XX

        If I remember rightly, Bikers are included in that “self inflicted risk” list!!

        (M.A.G will know….I am sure, either Back street heroes (Maz Harris…Isiah Fartwel?), or A.W.O.L (Odgie)reported on it.)

    • What about those who have spare parts babies or repeated fertility treatment?

      That it is unsustainable is due to the fact that healthcare is incredibly expensive, which is why France, for example, has eye-watering social costs and still tops it up with private insurance. It is not because of the drinkers, smokers and fatties, much as modern orthodoxy would like us to believe that it is.

      • What about those with any kiddies at all? I’ve seen plenty a mother flip out and dash directly to A&E for the slightest bump on a kids head.

        It’s rare I visit the doctors (Very rare) but whenever I do it’s always parents and children in the waiting rooms.

        Any notion that charges extra for lifestyle must surely add on a premium for being a parent.

        • XX Iโ€™ve seen plenty a mother flip out and dash directly to A&E for the slightest bump on a kids head. XX

          Aye! Because there are so many smart arse informers around nowdays, from arsehole teachers (99% of them), to the local old Grannny, only too willing to report every bruise, scratch, and over energetic fart, as “child abuse”.

          The ONLY way to get by that is to take the bastard to A&E every time. At least then, the courts can not say “You were hiding something!”

  3. Katie Hopkins argues that people who eat, drink and smoke more than is good for them should pay more towards the NHS health care they need

    Seems to me she wants an entirely fair distribution of NHS services. I say call her bluff and give her precisely what she wants.

    Sit her down with a calculator and work out the precise amount it will cost every single individual in the entire country to receive healthcare. All she has to do is take into account a detailed analysis she has personally performed of every single individuals lifestyle, eating, drinking, smoking and sexual habits…then subtract the precise amount already paid to date from various sources of tax such as Income Tax, National Insurance (not the paid-for-those-on-benefits-by-the-taxpayer-credit type), VAT and inflated price increases such as cigarettes and alcohol.

    No guesstimates, nothing based on statistics or paid-for-and-biased research….just the cold hard facts on every single individual in the entire country.

    I look forward to my rebate.

        • Ahuh…and what is this “need” of which she speaks ?

          She’s well behind the times on Frank Field who is of the firm opinion that welfare should not based on “need”.

          Seems we need an awful lot of alternative dictionaries and definitions for these people that we can refer to when trying to decipher what the hell they’re going on about before we can even begin to consider their demands.

  4. She might also like to consider the facts (you know those things that always seem to contradict the righteous) around the gender gap on NHS use. Women overwhelmingly use considerably more at all age ranges (by old age the differential is staggering). So, let’s have those wimmin paying more shall we?

  5. I saw her spouting off about this. It’s crazy. Anyone engaging in any sport runs a risk of injury which can be catastrophic. Is taking viagra a lifesyle choice even though it increases the risk of a stroke (no dubious pun intended)? Should a morbidly obese patient pay for that gastric band or new knee joints? Should bloggers pay for osteoarthritis treatment because of repetative strain injury? the NHS is free at the point to use or treatment and paid for through national insurance and general taxation. If patients are to denied treatment then they can take the UK gov to the ECHR plus every other court along the way or everyone gets 50% of the NI ponzi scheme money back. Politicians won’t like that. Hopkins can fantasise all she likes. It ain’t gonna happen.

  6. I really am amazed. I thought that there would be a limit to the chutzpah of people who appear in the media.

    Not so.

    A lard-bucket lectures me on my eating habits and gets paid for doing it…

    God help her or me, I’m not sure anymore.

  7. Since I work on reducing the gap in health inequality I am interested in this debate. Both sides of the argument make valid points. But the start point is the NHS is a failure. The lowest income groups due 11 years younger and suffer 17 years longer with a life limiting condition. The unfair distribution of wealth is a significant cause – but so is free and universal health care. The reason fir this paradox is that higher income groups take more advantage of treatments. They take more than their fair share. This is compounded by the problem that National Insurance is not insurance. It is not actuarily or risk based. It simply makes a contribution to costs. Health, pensions and benefits are mainly funded through general taxation. Then we have the national structure. The architect of the welfare state (Beveridge) warned against creating state monopolies. He believed in compulsory state insurance and universal state benefits – but he was not in favour of breaking up the manyband effective local and regional suppliers of health and assistance, many of which were run by local clubs, unions and mutuals.

    So, since we must agree the data shows the NHS is failing where do we go from here. Katie Hopkins might be a small brained opportunist but he brain is large enough to observe that many people develop chronic conditions through poor lifestyle decisions. To address this the NHS should target spending on prevention with an emphasis on helping people on low incomes. It also needs to introduce substantial cuts in pay for consultants and GPs who are overpaid by international standards. Then it needs to be carved up services so that we escape from the inefficiencies of an organisation that is too large to manage. Size rather than type of ownership is the issue. As long as we have competition fir services between smaller organisations it doesn’t matter whether they are publicly or privately owned. This is how most EU nations have evolved a better system than the NHS. No organisation, not even in the private sector can be efficient and responsive when it is as large as the NHS. So there you have it. No ranting. Just a balanced response to Katie – whose limited intellect at least started a debate.

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