Euro to Britain: NHS must go

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2003-05-06 09:03pm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 46,00.html

BRITAIN will be forced to scrap the National Health Service if it joins the euro, Gordon Brown was told yesterday.

The European Central Bank, which manages the single currency, gave warning that free health care would have to be restricted to emergency services only, otherwise the cost would overwhelm European economies and lead to soaring inflation. Britain has one of the biggest tax-funded health services in the EU, with only a tiny proportion of treatments paid for privately.

Any thoughts from our Brit members?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-05-06 09:44pm

No, but as an American, I say fuck the EU! Goddamn freaks don't know what "sovereign" means.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2003-05-06 09:47pm

well, the eu is forming its own little united states. . .good bye 13 colonies - hello nice new nation.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-05-06 09:52pm

Howedar wrote:No, but as an American, I say fuck the EU! Goddamn freaks don't know what "sovereign" means.

Hear! Hear!

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-05-06 10:05pm

Have fun all you future citizens/slaves of the United States of Europe.

Britian, we'll be sad to see yo go. Guess the French'll get you guys in the end.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-05-06 10:16pm

"Bomb the tunnel"

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-05-07 03:50am

Humm. If I were human I believe my response would be:

"Go to hell"

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-05-07 04:28am

Though I agree with the above, the British really should trash their NHS anyway. However, I wouldn't mind if the UK joined, kept NHS and destroyed the Euro.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-05-07 04:35am

The NHS, from what I have heard, is just a huge amount of bureacuratic bloat that could do with a redesign from the ground up. Free health care services, if properly thought out and implemented, are not the kind of bogeyman they're made out to be. And I'd much rather be a citizen/slave of the USE than the USA, thank you very much, my fellow puppets who already live in a police state. Just look at the last thread I posted on this forum to see why...

Edi

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-05-07 04:48am

Edi wrote:The NHS, from what I have heard, is just a huge amount of bureacuratic bloat that could do with a redesign from the ground up. Free health care services, if properly thought out and implemented, are not the kind of bogeyman they're made out to be. And I'd much rather be a citizen/slave of the USE than the USA, thank you very much, my fellow puppets who already live in a police state. Just look at the last thread I posted on this forum to see why...

Edi

Or you could just stay out of it completely go back to selling timber for both sides to line there trenches with.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-05-07 05:09am

Sea Skimmer wrote:Or you could just stay out of it completely go back to selling timber for both sides to line there trenches with.

Got your goat, did I? Good. If Stormy wants to throw flippant blanket remarks like that around without even bothering with a joke smiley to let everyone know he's making one, I'm not going to be much in the mood for playing nice either. Retaliation in kind is to be expected for stuff like that.

I'm just as tired of Americans flinging shit at Europe every chance they get as they are of Europeans flinging shit at America at every turn (and also the other way around, even though I'm not American), and this topic was beginning to fast falling into that category, and the general attitude in this thread seems to be that the EMU means utter loss of sovereignty, when that is hardly the case. Most countries that have opted to join the EMU have had quite a few benefits from it, and I don't see why Britain would have it that much harder than anybody else if they did too. If people want to make jokes, then they should indicate that they're making one, there's been enough bad blood over political topics between Americans and non-Americans here that insensitive comments can rile people up good without clarification.

Besides, the original quote concerns not only Britain but most other EU countries as well. There is a general need for restructuring (for various reasons, demographics among others) instead of just constant spending cuts, and most of that means doing the fuck away with bureaucratic bloat.

Edi

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-05-07 05:40am

The NHS did work perfectly well until Thatcherism (imported from the US I might add) fucked it over. The current govt care more about their popularity than actually getting off their arses and doing something and therefore have let it deteriroate.

What do the US have against State healthcare anyway?

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-05-07 05:59am

I'll admit that the NHS is need of a good organisational rehash, but we need it right now. Scrapping it completely would be as damaging to the average Brit as the Top -up fees (up to £11,000) would be to university students. The fact is, the majority just do not have the insurance to cope with all the health care we're going to need in our lives.

And it's not as if this wiould be accompanied by a scraping of the National Insurance, is it?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-05-07 06:54am

They'd better know that even I (a fanatical porponent of european integration) say 'shaft them' if they want to play it that way.

The insolence of this coming from France and Germany, two centralised states if ever you saw them. Prehaps if they got rid of that theiving stinking french weasel Chiraq they'd have a bit more money in their pockets!

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-05-07 07:05am

Well all the anti-euro people just got their major weapon handed to them (assuming of course the data lends it self well to their position, since I can't seem to find the pulbication on the ECB website I will reserve judgement.), I honestly don't think they would try and force us to drop the NHS anyway, they are screaming at the French and Germans to begin reforms and those two simply look around in a dazed fashion and do zip.

GonK · Post by **GonK** » 2003-05-07 09:36am

Ah more bureacuratic stupidity from Brussels.
Given that I doubt that anyone would vote to join the Euro once they knew it would mean the end of the NHS you have to wonder if they really want Britain to join it?

All the more reason to declare Scottish independace and tell Europe to go fuck it's self...

Did I mention that Braveheart's on TV tonight....

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2003-05-07 09:36am

NecronLord wrote: The insolence of this coming from France and Germany, two centralised states if ever you saw them. Prehaps if they got rid of that theiving stinking french weasel Chiraq they'd have a bit more money in their pockets!

That may be true for France.
But Germany is so not centralized.
We're a Federal republic, with very decentralized structures.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-05-07 11:02am

Well first of all no one can be 'forced into joining the Euro', it is a decision that is made by the sovreign nation alone. Mr Brown is in charge by the government to present his 'five tests' to see whether or not Britain should joing the Euro, and he is just doing his job.

Second, joining the Euro would actually help the UK's economy, simply because their exports would be more competetive. Personally I don't think the UK should join now. There are too many Euro-sceptics to make it work without someone crying 'bloody murder' every ten seconds...

*glances at most of the replies in this thread*

Case in point.

CmdrSweevo · Post by **CmdrSweevo** » 2003-05-07 12:47pm

Alex Moon wrote:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-669846,00.htm

Any thoughts from our Brit members?

Brown's trying to scare us. It doesn't mean anything. Everytime a politician speaks on the issue we should either be run far and fast from the Euro or begging the current members' forgiveness for being so slow off the mark in joining, depending on who's doing the speaking. No-one in the public eye is presenting a realistic view of what the Euro will mean for the common man, so the only arguements we see are either the horrors of isolation or the equally terrible loss of our sovereignity.

Brown's opposed to the Euro, and has picked something more easily identifiable than increased Brussel's influence or economic incompatability to try and beat us round to his point of view.

CmdrSweevo · Post by **CmdrSweevo** » 2003-05-07 12:50pm

Dammit, misread the article! Still, music to Brown's ears, I imagine.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-05-07 03:34pm

Edi wrote: Got your goat, did I?

No not really, though you have demonstrated that you can't see a joke even when the post contains nothing else.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-05-07 04:02pm

Dahak wrote: That may be true for France.
But Germany is so not centralized.
We're a Federal republic, with very decentralized structures.

In this context centralised means control of services by the govt rather than the exact political system.

Sorry but there's no established teminology for it.

Post by **Edi** » 2003-05-08 01:54am

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Edi wrote: Got your goat, did I?
No not really, though you have demonstrated that you can't see a joke even when the post contains nothing else.

It wasn't clear the first part of it was one, given the couple of previous posts. The people who read the posts don't have long range ESP abilities that enable them to determine what the author was thinking at the time and what spirit he intended the post in, and depending on their own frame of mind at the time they read it, it can come across quite differently than was the author's intent. And when there is a history of opposing positions (often quite vehemently opposing) such as is the case here (both you and Stormbringer vs. many of the Europeans here in this regard), backfires like this are nothing unexpected. The

and

smilies are there for a reason, and I tend to use them when making jokes, especially if it's over a topic like this which has the potential for controversy.

Looking back at your post, yeah, it can be taken as a joke (and a pretty funny one at that, too), but without qualifiers, it can also come across as a snide, condescending remark, and I was in a frame of mind that was conducive to taking it that way. Just like the post where I first went off, I could have made the comment into a joke, in which case there'd have been a smiley and no reference to the other thread.

Edi

Morning Star · Post by **Morning Star** » 2003-05-09 12:14pm

Alex Moon wrote:
Any thoughts from our Brit members?

Yep, the Europe can go fuck itself. Thank fate for Blair.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » 2003-05-09 01:33pm

...Britain has one of the biggest tax-funded health services in the EU, with only a tiny proportion of treatments paid for privately.

So does Spain, and since it entered the EU it just kept going better and better. With the euro nothing changed. I think this is bullshit, it won't be so dramaticall as they want to make us see.

Howedar wrote:No, but as an American, I say fuck the EU! Goddamn freaks don't know what "sovereign" means.

It seems to me, that like an American you don't have no fucking idea what you are talking about. Fuck the EU? What's that? Aimbless rambling.
Don't know what sovereign means? You don't know what it means. Is the EU FORCING the Brits to join the EURO, no as far as I remember.

NecronLord wrote:In this context centralised means control of services by the govt rather than the exact political system.

Sorry but there's no established teminology for it.

What do you mean by "control of services by the government" ?

And what do Americans bitch about? They don't even have govt based Healthcaresystem.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Euro to Britain: NHS must go

Euro to Britain: NHS must go

Re: Euro to Britain: NHS must go

Re: Euro to Britain: NHS must go