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Importing a US reject

Many of the ideas behind the government’s white paper are already practised in the UK — where an infinitely worse health service is provided.

Labour shadow spokesperson on health, Harriet Harman MP, made a study visit to the US last year to look at healthcare. Her recently published report, Your dollars or your life, shows there is a wide consensus that the US system is failing. Americans are astonished that suggestions are being made in this country to introduce competition and the market into healthcare.

The report says competition is actually damaging US healthcare — driving the quality of care down, rather than improving it.

To compete, US hospitals cut corners and the quality of care suffers.

The more intense the competition, the worse the patient fares.

According to a recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, ‘There are significant associations between higher mortality rates, the stringency of state programmes to review hospital rates and the intensity of competition in the market place.’

’These findings raise serious concerns about the welfare of patients who are admitted to hospitals in relatively competitive markets. Regardless of the nature of their ownership, hospitals that face severe constraints, strong competitive pressures in the local markets, or both, may respond to these forces in ways associated with poorer outcomes for patients.’

Competition provides an unfair and uneven system of healthcare which penalises the rich with overtreatment and the poor with undertreatment. In the US, only 50 percent of people have their own GP, compared with 95 percent in Britain. Americans therefor miss out on an important aspect of primary care.

Competition also fails to provide care for people with long-term illness or disabilities.

It increases bureaucracy — and does not even control costs — the US spends more of its Gross Domestic Product on healthcare than any other country.

Many people in the US would prefer an NHS to their competitive healthcare system. It is ironic that at the very time our government is looking across the Atlantic to borrow US ideas for reforming the NHS, many Americans are looking to our system. These are the people who have learnt the hard lessons of competition — not just those who are attracted by the rhetoric.

Your dollar or your life is available from Harriet Harman MP, House of Commons, London SW1 0AA.