Public Health

If the COVID doolally has taught us anything, it's that the Public Health sector and NHS are not fit for purpose

Modern public health is not about stopping epidemics of typhoid or small pox, it's about stopping people smoking tobacco, drinking booze and eating burgers.

Why though? To help them live a longer life? If you are concerned about people dying early, all you have to do is offer advice and then leave them alone to make their own choices.

To make them live a longer life? Who would want to do that? Apart from my family, who would be that concerned about how long I live; so concerned that they would attempt to force my hand on my lifestyle choices?

Strangers are not so concerned about each and every one of us, that they would demand we be forced by law to look after our own health, just so that we can live for a few more years.

They must have another reason.

What's left? The only reason left is the cost to society, in particular, the NHS. It costs money to treat illnesses. People who do not look after their health may get more illnesses, therefore, incurring more cost.

And this is the argument we hear most often. Tobacco, obesity ect is bankrupting the NHS. It's cost x amount of billions to treat, yadda, yadda.

This means that the entire modern public health industry is one big admission that the NHS is not working.

When the NHS was originally set up, the idea was that over time, with access to free healthcare, the population would gradually get healthier and costs would go down. This hasn't happened. Costs increase by absurd amounts, year on year.

Everyone pays a premium for the NHS, the money comes out of our wages in the form of National Insurance. It costs the same amount of money to treat lung cancer in a smoker as it does a none smoker and they also get cancer. Leaving the various sin taxes aside for the time being, we all pay the same for treatment. Therefore, you would expect the smoker and the non smoker to get the same treatment for the same disease, yet smokers are constantly told they are costing the NHS money because their vice might be a contributory factor to their illness.

So the NHS takes money from all of us, yet can't afford to treat all of us. In fact it can only afford to treat those who are healthy.

If the public health industry have to force lifestyle change because the NHS cannot afford to treat us all, isn't that an admission that the very principle of the NHS is flawed?

The simple answer to public health is not to fight a loosing battle against lifestyle choice, but instead to campaign for the NHS to be scrapped and a private healthcare system to be brought in.

If smokers, drinkers and fatties really do cost more in healthcare, they could pay more in insurance premiums. The health could pay less.

Problem solved.

If you drive a performance car with a V8 engine, you will be paying more in car insurance. You can choose to change your car and pay less, or continue to enjoy the car and accept the higher premium.
In an insurance based healthcare system, if you smoke 40 per day and your health is deteriorating, you could chose to quit smoking and pay a lower premium, or continue to enjoy tobacco and pay more.

But no, the NHS takes from everyone and the public health industry attempts to make us all conform to the small print in that contract, with no option to opt out.

Scrap the NHS and go private and the public health industry has no more legitimate reason to exist.