Brits Know How to Conduct Elections

[Isaac]

JOHN DERBYSHIRE: U.K. Not A Happy Country. But It Knows How To Hold Elections. | Articles

[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now availab...

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Is this article accurate mostly?

And does the government-provided health care really stink as they say?

 

[ColinEssex]

The NHS is going through a difficult time. There are around 7.5 million people currently waiting for operations. The waiting list for radiotherapy/cancer treatment is several weeks. Doctors go on strike for more pay, this leads to many thousands of people having treatment cancelled. There is a massive shortage of nurses and midwives, ive heard of just one nurse looking after 20 patients.
Ambulances queue up outside the Accident and Emergency departments because the departments are full. If you need emergency care you can wait 4 or 5 hours or more for treatment. With many ambulances tied up waiting to discharge their patients, the response time for an emergency call for ambulances can be several hours before they respond.
Apart from all that the NHS is fine.
Col

 

[Galaxiom]

The Brits don't know how to hold an election any more the US. Both use the hopeless first past the post system.

In Australia we have preferential voting which makes it possible for minor parties to participate in a real contest, instead of just two huge parties controlling everything.

 

[Pat Hartman]

In Australia we have preferential voting which makes it possible for minor parties to participate in a real contest, instead of just two huge parties controlling everything.

There is a difference between how an election is actually conducted - ie - how people vote and how votes are tallied and is there an audit trail. That doesn't have anything to do with the power broker system managed by having political parties control things.

In the US, one of the major parties (Democrat) wants to allow anyone who can walk into a polling place to vote. No ID necessary. They want to have voting "season", not voting week or even month let alone voting DAY. They also want to send absentee ballots to every single person who has ever registered to vote. The mail-in ballot issue especially is prone to fraud. Not only that but they want to keep counting ballots until they get the results they want. None of this, if your ballot isn't postmarked by election day and received within 3 days, it doesn't count. And worst of all, they want illegal aliens to be able to vote. Who gives a say in how your country is run to someone who is in your country illegally?

The other party (Republicans) wants you to prove your citizenship when you register. Then show a photo ID when you go to the polls and have to request a mail-in ballot if you won't be able to go to the polls on election day. Then you have to sign the ballots' envelope and that signature has to be verified. Somehow, before planes, trains, and automobiles, voters managed to get to the polling location on foot, on horseback, or by carriage. They didn't need 3 months to do it either.

 

[Galaxiom]

ID has never been required for elections in Australia and there has never been any evidence of a problem.

We have compulsory voting with very small numbers not showing up to vote, so pretending to be someone else to get a second vote would likely raise an error when it is audited.

We also hold elections on Saturdays with a week of "prepolling" for those who can't make it on the day. And postal votes. It makes sure everyone has the opportunity to vote.

 

[Isaac]

The NHS is going through a difficult time. There are around 7.5 million people currently waiting for operations. The waiting list for radiotherapy/cancer treatment is several weeks. Doctors go on strike for more pay, this leads to many thousands of people having treatment cancelled. There is a massive shortage of nurses and midwives, ive heard of just one nurse looking after 20 patients.
Ambulances queue up outside the Accident and Emergency departments because the departments are full. If you need emergency care you can wait 4 or 5 hours or more for treatment. With many ambulances tied up waiting to discharge their patients, the response time for an emergency call for ambulances can be several hours before they respond.
Apart from all that the NHS is fine.
Col

Wow. That does not sound like a very enjoyable State sponsored system at the moment at least

 

[ColinEssex]

Wow. That does not sound like a very enjoyable State sponsored system at the moment at least

I could go on about not enough beds so patients are treated in corridors, hospital buildings falling apart and dangerous to use, but it'll bore you.

But having said all that, the NHS is still revered by the British. Very expensive treatment is free, as is all treatment. (Except dental care)
If you really need life saving treatment then the NHS is there for you and you do get immediate treatment. I know, - I've had it.

The British people don't want the American system where the first question is 'do you have insurance? ' we hear that money or insurance dictates if you get hospital care in America. And your American god help you if you have no insurance.
Col

 

[Steve R.]

The British people don't want the American system where the first question is 'do you have insurance? ' we hear that money or insurance dictates if you get hospital care in America. And your American god help you if you have no insurance.

An issue that we (in the US) do not seem to consider; Is health insurance cost effective when compared to providing health care for all?
The health insurance industry is a massive inefficient bureaucracy that does not actually provide direct medical treatment. The money used to support that bureaucracy, could instead be used to pay doctors, nurses, and others who provide direct (hands-on) health care.

There is an obvious concern with the paragraph above. Would you simply be replacing one inefficient massive bureaucracy with another? Even with the government providing hands-on healthcare for all, there will emerge a bureaucracy dedicated to controlling costs, fighting fraud, and evaluating patient care. Consider Parkinson's Law. Can the emergence of this inefficient bureaucracy be controlled?

the number of workers within public administration, bureaucracy or officialdom tends to grow, regardless of the amount of work to be done. This was attributed mainly to two factors: that officials want subordinates, not rivals, and that officials make work for each other.

PS: The private health insurance system demonstrates the validity of Parkinson's Law.

 

[CJ_London]

When the NHS was set up, it was intended to deal with broken bones, loss of limbs, diseases, maternity care and the like. Expensive procedures such as open heart surgery did not exist and many issues such as mental health and cancer were not recognised as being treatable.

All of these now form part of the NHS remit, along with cosmetic surgery, drug treatments, gender issues and other 'self inflicted' conditions. To paraphrase, they don't just need a chisel and a screwdriver, they need a whole range of tools.

Since the formation of the NHS, the population has grown by around 40%, in part though immigration and in part through improved infant mortality and an aging population. Many who 70 years ago would not have survived, now do so as a result of improved health care. Currently something like 10% of the population have regular need of NHS care.

Part the problem is the NHS is mainly reactive. Until a patient walks (or is carried) through the door, they don't know what resources they will need, so they have personnel on standby, operating theatres kept in a state of readiness etc. They are creating more preventative processes to encourage people to stop smoking, drinking, take their medicine, etc but these take time to show benefits and unfortunately there are a lot of people who don't see it as their personal responsibility to look after themselves.

I do believe there is a lot of waste in the NHS - IT systems that don't do as required - on a small scale how often do we see medical personnel on this forum asking about how to create a system to manage a surgeon or consultants time? I've been involved with developing an access application to manage the distribution of drugs and medical equipment as the multi million pound corporate systems could not cope with rapid change. 20 years ago Labour created the public/private partnership which became a license for the private element to print money. Something I don't think can be resolved until (I think) 2030. You have doctors and surgeons who have excellent skills for their profession but they don't necessarily have the skills for managing a large organisation. Similarly you can have professional managers and administrators who do not understand the intricacies of the medical profession.

Overall, my experiences with the NHS have been positive so I don't have an axe to grind but I do think the way the NHS is organised and funded needs a complete overhaul.

 

[ColinEssex]

Overall, my experiences with the NHS have been positive so I don't have an axe to grind but I do think the way the NHS is organised and funded needs a complete overhaul.

I agree. I worked in the NHS for nearly 40 years. Over that time, there has been 4 or 5 'reorganisations'. One has to question their effectiveness. Again, I won't be boring but I could write a book about the tens of millions wasted, yet nobody seems to have the guts to really get to grips with it.
Col

 

[The_Doc_Man]

nearly 40 years. Over that time, there has been 4 or 5 'reorganisations'.

The issue of frequent reorganization is not exclusive to health care systems. In essence, my job duties as a contractor with the U.S. Navy never changed in the entire 28 1/2 year period. What changed was the logo under the manager's mail signature and the acronym you used to look up who was responsible for funding things this week. Besides working for eight different contracting companies over the 28 1/2 year period, we had at least four major Navy organizational changes. The only one I REALLY understood was when SPAWAR division (Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command) changed to NIWSC (Naval Information Warfare Systems Command). And that only occurred because the USA created the U.S. Space Force as a sixth service branch. And of course after that, none of the other branches could have a division with "Space" as part of its name.

A quote attributed to Charlton Ogburn Jr:

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. During our reorganizations, several commanding officers were tried out on us, which added to the discontinuity.

 

[Cotswold]

The Brits don't know how to hold an election any more the US. Both use the hopeless first past the post system.

In Australia we have preferential voting which makes it possible for minor parties to participate in a real contest, instead of just two huge parties controlling everything.

My daughter and her husband, an Australian lived in England for a while. As soon as he landed he was entitled to vote and did.
They moved to Australia four years ago and my daughter still cannot vote. She will only be able to vote when she has her citizenship. If she chose not to have dual citizenship, she would never be allowed to vote. Citizenship cannot happen for maybe five years. In the meantime, she can pay all of the taxes but is not allowed an opinion.

 

[Pat Hartman]

They moved to Australia four years ago and my daughter still cannot vote.

Perhaps the UK should make a reciprocal treaty with Commonwealth countries. We let you vote in our elections if you let us vote in yours.

 

[Isaac]

My daughter and her husband, an Australian lived in England for a while. As soon as he landed he was entitled to vote and did.
They moved to Australia four years ago and my daughter still cannot vote. She will only be able to vote when she has her citizenship. If she chose not to have dual citizenship, she would never be allowed to vote. Citizenship cannot happen for maybe five years. In the meantime, she can pay all of the taxes but is not allowed an opinion.

You can vote in the UK as long as you physically reside there?

 

[ColinEssex]

Perhaps the UK should make a reciprocal treaty with Commonwealth countries. We let you vote in our elections if you let us vote in yours.

The USA is not a Commonwealth country.
Col

 

[Pat Hartman]

The USA is not a Commonwealth country.

Really? The "we" was YOU.