Reply #52: Moderate Repubs would be a reasonable comparison [View All]

[muriel_volestrangler]

They favour private companies over employment by the state, wherever possible, but know there are limits to what the British Public would accept.

So, for the NHS, their plans are to make hospitals more independent of central control and planning. Thus, from their plans:

Ensure all hospitals become Foundation Trusts
Allow patients to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards
Implement a 'payment for results' system throughout NHS
Link GPs' pay to results

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8515961.stm?subject=health#subject=health&col1=conservative&col2=labour&col3=libdem

In effect, they would like to make the NHS into a Single Payer system, with independent entities (non-profit, for the existing ones, but for-profit firms can join in) providing the care. Now, that's to the right of the present situation, in which the state is the employer of most of the people in the system (not all, already, and some blame the lax standard of cleanliness in many hospitals on privatisation of the cleaning, for instance). But few of the Tories have actually called for ending the basis of paying for it all through general taxation (Daniel Hannan, the extremist Tory MEP that I think turns up often on Fox News, has done so, but he is, at the moment at least, at the far end of the party).

And they are moderate right wing on other issues too. For instance, on abortion, there was an attempt to restrict the time beyond which only severe foetal abnormalities, or a major threat to the health of the woman, can be used as the reason for abortion, from the current 24 weeks to 22 or 20 weeks. It was defeated, but many Tories did vote for limiting it.