"President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have begun to frame their proposals for health care and other issues as 'job-creation measures' in response to the current economic downturn, the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, the 'thinking is that universal coverage will lower health care costs and make companies more willing to hire, as well as create new health care jobs.'"This is in response to the sick care crisis, caused in large part (no pun intended) by fat people.
Let's look into the future-scope.
"The National Health Service is famous for being free at the point of need, but analysts say that if the 60-year-old NHS is to serve an ageing and expanding population, the reality of its cost must be accepted...Views vary on how to provide the best service for the NHS's 60 million users, but analysts agree on one point: The public and its politicians must accept that the cost of the world's largest publicly funded health service is going up, and acknowledge it is a luxury, albeit one this society can afford.
'We have become fixed on the idea that the NHS is somehow free,' David Furness, a health service analyst at the Social Market Foundation think-tank, told Reuters.
'It is not free. We all pay for it through taxation, and it's free at the point of use -- that's something quite different. There are no blank cheques, but we should be celebrating the fact that our health system can give so much more than anyone ever imagined it would in 1948.'"
How big is the NHS?
"In terms of sheer size of personnel, only China's People's Liberation Army, America's giant Wal-Mart supermarket chain and India's enormous railway system compare with the NHS.
With a workforce of 1.5 million people across Britain, it is Europe's largest employer, and it deals with eight patients every second.
Analysts say a reluctance to recognise the costs of the NHS leads to a lack of realism when it comes to discussing reforms or possible limits on what it can and should provide...
'There are no estimates of how much all this will cost and no indication of just how different the government expects the quality of health services to be in five or 10 years time,' said Niall Dickson, the Fund's chief executive.
The review was slammed by the Conservatives, which is riding high in the polls as Brown's popularity slides.
'The complete lack of vision in these proposals means that, sadly, the government has missed its 'once-in-a-generation opportunity' to enact the real reform that our NHS needs,' said Conservative Health Spokesman Andrew Lansley."
Welcome to the future.
But you can change it. Get fit. It will make a difference.
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