Trump is very keen for big US healthcare corporations to have access to the NHS and this would have a disastrous impact on patients and service users. Our health service is already in crisis and a deal allowing access would result in higher drug prices, more outsourcing and a two tier system were those who can pay will get seen first. We have all heard the stories about people being unable to access healthcare in the USA.
He continued people are already being conditioned by our politicians in Northern Ireland to accept private healthcare. The Belfast City Council decision to approve the building of a new private hospital with no opposition speaks volumes for the political commitment to the values and founding principles of the NHS.
Not long afterwards we had a credit union in one of the most poverty stricken areas in Western Europe agree a partnership with a private company to provide loans to buy health care treatment and not at a discount making the private provider the real winner in the partnership.
This not only flies in the face of the ethos of the credit union movement in Northern Ireland which was set up to provide cheap loans to working class people that banks would not lend to. So they could provide for Christmas, holidays, home improvements and other small but costly necessities of life. It would never have been envisaged that loans would have been made to pay for health care.
Peter concluded that working class people have paid for the NHS through their taxes and national insurance contributions and continue to do so. Those who encourage working people to borrow to pay for their treatment is doing a disservice not only to those individuals but to the National Health Service which may no longer exist if the private sector has it way. We need to protect the NHS which was created to be free at the point of use for all those in need.