Yes, I know that and if, heaven forbid, something goes wrong, it's the NHS that pick up the pieces.
It just allows people who want to and who have plenty of brass or, a generous employer, to queue jump.
Some of them then have the audacity to pretend that they are doing the rest of us a favour

I'm not against private medicine necessarily but, if our health service worked just a little better, and was properly funded, nobody would need it.

It's time that health and education were sorted our on a cross party basis and take the politics out of such fundamental services but, sadly, that will never happen and instead we get a continuous political "measuring" contest.

It's time that collectively, we agreed just what should be expected from the NHS and then get on and deal with it.

The primary factor for me is I get to chose the consultant I want to do the 'work'. One I can research and guarantee a high level of competence and quality. In the NHS there are a lot of trainee Drs learning and that's not happening on my knees!

That is the point my wife was in agony with gall stones which the NHS were reluctant to treat - so I suggested I had private medical insurance it was done the following week by the surgeon of our choice in a private hospital.

The surgeon said after the op there was no way my wife should had suffered for as long she had - small price to pay in my view.

Not once on here has anyone suggested what they think the NHS should offer - so let's get everyone's opinion of what should be covered by NI contributions:

For me it should basic healthcare that maintains a reasonable state of being. It should definitely cover childbirth and free health for children up to 16 including dentistry.

What it shouldn't cover: IVF, gender re-assignment, very expensive cancer treatments, vanity treatments e.g. penis increases, breast augmentation, tummy tucks etc.

Not at all because I don't see things your way - so I ask again what should the NHS offer?

If you want to have a sensible discussion then put your opinions out there for all to read - it isn't difficult even for you

No - because your starting position is to consign people to a life of misery and mental health problems, or a slow painful death, because they don't have the money to fund their own treatment. You are proposing to break a fundamental social contract between the government and the citizens of the UK - and I can't engage with that level of cruelty; or wind up.

NHS ,someone once said it's the only religion we have left in this country. We can never really discuss in depth the problems in the NHS ,mainly because the Labour Party scream that the tories are privatising it. The tories then panic and carry on and the system worsens year on year.
If it's so good how come most of the devolped world have different systems. It's supposed to be a uniform system, yet I know people in Sheffield who have to wait 2 weeks for a doctors appointment. Yet in my semi rural area I can usually fix up an appointment the same day. Two of our friends ,ladies over sixty years of age have had knee replacements on the NHS but undertaken at a private hospital. Everything top class and successful, yet many politicians hate this type of system. Usually because the trade unions are against this system.
The only way for the NHS to improve is a mixture of state and private funding . Another failing of the NHS is this constant bleating that it's got to be free at the point of use. Let's face it not many things in life are free, somebody down the line is paying for it. That's certainly the case with the NHS.

It s not free. It is paid for by taxation. A much better way of funding than via insurance contracts which only some people can afford or which provide a burden on business and exclude anything complicatated or expensive.

Just on a side note, did anyone see Question Time last night.
Labour shadow minister Richard Burgon trying to say that Labour was the party for the self employed and small business as they were advocating giving paternity rights to the self employed.
I was embarrassed for him, the guy has no idea what is involved in running a small business, none.

The Tory on the panel, who is happy to admit that he's loaded, at least spoke some sense, particularly about Brexit and how we would struggle to gain access to the single market and customs union outside the EU.
I dont agree with his politics but at least he seemed prepared to be up front and honest about where we're at.

The point for me is do we want a health service that is all things to all people in which everyone gets what they want when they want it or are we as nation prepared to accept some choices have to be made about certain clinical procedures.

If you want the former because that's the easy option then the funding required is a bottomless pit - however if you are prepared to accept that life isn't fair and we can't all have everything e.g. it isn't a right to get pregnant, then a properly funded NHS is possible and other taxation monies can be diverted to other equally important areas.

Those examples of mine are extreme but that was the intention those people are in the minority but some the cancer treatments are incredibly expensive for what is often a very short extension to life.

I really like Rees-Mogg. Witty, honest and decent. The Labour bloke on self-employed was cringeworthy. I think he was getting mixed up with rights for couriers, Uber drivers and thx like who are deemed self-employed when not really? Otherwise his 'real world' of Leeds must be an odd place.

We already have that - so the fundamental premise of your proposition is erroneous.

You originally stated the NHS was inefficient - hence the financial difficulties; you now seem to be suggesting that the problem is caused by the undeserving poor expecting help with fertility or cancer?

And I'm willing to wager that you wouldn't have entertained these thoughts earlier in your career, when you didn't have private health insurance.

Check his voting record - he's another entitled Eton boy, with no regard for the working classes; his affable posh twit routine is as sinister as that of Boris Johnson.