The post you are reporting:
I cannot stand the prospect of privatisation and looking at the 'reform' website to suggest that they are apolitical would be a stretch, especially the media coverage section topics that demonstrates their true position. However it is true to say that the NHS is failing us and serious reform of some kind is necessary. The complexity of what the service offers has increased exponentially and will continue to do so. I think some of the points raised by 'reform' are valid; the NHS should be depoliticised to an extent leaving it to be run by those that best understand health care. I do however disagree with this blatant attempt privatise something, that Bern rightly points out is a basic human right in civilised society. What we would find is that those at the top of these new providers would actually not be experts in health care but much the same as those who are making ineffective decisions at the moment, the only difference being that they were primarily trying to turn a profit at the same time.
It is all well and good applying business models to public services like the NHS but as I have expressed in the past, they are not businesses but services. Their primary output is not measurable in money and so to try and calculate its ineffectiveness by the amount of financing it 'wastes' is pointless, although I am not saying that the NHS currently doing an effective job! By bringing in private providers across the whole system we only widen a gap that already exists between public and private health care. 'If you've got more cash, you are more entitled to faster better treatment' This would be perpetuated by companies trying to undercut each other, headhunting consultants and all sorts of other hideous corporate behaviour that has no place in healthcare, or any other public service for that fact.
What if we were to apply these same sorts of model to our police forces, or god forbid our armed services? What these wonderful people provide us, at a financial loss, is exactly the same: protection of our liberties. We all understand that our troops are not being properly equipped, why? Because someone has tried to throw finance into something that has nothing (hopefully) to do with cash!