Just a few words on this ridiculous position, from me, who grew up in America under American "health care" and what this would mean for our NHS.
The leading cause of bankruptcy in America is medical bills.
In America getting sick can and very often means you end up homeless.
In America, because healthcare is for profit there is no option of generic drugs. If we have to negotiate with America for drugs the prices will *not* go down. People in America have been dying because they cannot afford their insulin and they are rationing it.
In America access to health care is predicated on health insurance, which is a business. If you are lucky enough to have health insurance, but your insurance decides it wants to switch you to another medication to save money, it can without consulting you.
I had a memorable experience with this where my health insurance once switched my birth control unilaterally and I started having regular migraines. Greatest country in the world!
Also, if your health insurance decides that you have become too expensive - say that you have cancer, or need surgery, or have a car accident - they can simply kick you off and you suddenly are on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars because of massively inflated costs.
When my dad was having cancer treatment his insurance decided he was too expensive and actually sent a rep TO HIS HOSPITAL to try to discontinue his chemotherapy because they thought it cost too much. His union had to send a rep to STAND OUTSIDE HIS DOOR to stop them.
My mother once had a fistula, and because her insurance didn't want to pay for scans - which are billed at tens of thousands of dollars in the states because LOL why not - they simply put her on opioids and sent her home for a month while her condition worsened.
And that is if you have insurance. When my brother was in gradschool and uninsured he started having pains in his abdomen. He couldn't afford to see a doctor so he waited and hoped it would go away. He had appendicitis. His appendix perforated and he spent five weeks in hospital.
He was on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills when he came out, at 27, in uni, without a job.
I once had a discussion with a woman who worked in pharmaceuticals in America about the pricing of drugs there and mentioned that I thought the prices were predatory, she said to me "Well if everything was the NHS how would shareholders make money?" Lower prices won't happen.
The NHS is, to me, one of the greatest ever things that humans have done. No one should live in fear of getting sick. No one should worry they will become homeless because they are ill. No one should suffer so that billionaires can buy a better yacht.
American companies will not give you a better deal. They do not care about you. That is not how things work. This election is for the survival of the NHS, and if you think that is no big deal I urge you to go to America and look at the homeless epidemic there. This is not a joke.
It is too late to register to vote now, but I am begging you, please vote on the 12th and urge anyone you know to vote to get the Tories out. They are clear on this - they do not care about you, or the NHS. They want to make money, and they will ruin your health to do it.
https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1199049399411732480?s=20
Oh man forgot one of my best friends, who is pretty comfortably middle class and has insurance, but suffers from migraines. With insurance her migraine medication is $75 USD *per pill* so she has to ration it and see how bad a migraine will be before taking it. She loses days.
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