Did I say all? Or are you being wilfully obtuse?

Forgive me if I misquoted you, what you actually said was "All the hold housing estates in the area..." which is quite difficult to understand, I guessed that it meant "old", so "All the old housing estates in the area..." but I could be miles off the mark.

But yes, you did say "all", assuming that "all" wasn't a random word inserted into the sentence as well.

It's clarts like you lot slinging mud at each other and stereotyping who prevent any real progress in the debate in this country.

In relation to the original topic - of sorts - I am currently in the US and have been ill over the past week resulting in an emergency hospital visit. I'm yet to see the bill for the hospital visit but I have to say I did get the feeling they were pushing me towards certain treatments because they would have been able to bill me (my insurance) for them. It's not pleasant and I can only imagine what they get away with with for patients who are either unconscious or unable to really understand what choices they are being offered in these cases. Conversely though I would say that I found it quite positive that the doctor who treated me expected me to have a much better understanding of my prior health situation than I did, in terms of prescriptions I've had in the past. I've always felt with an NHS GP that treatment was quite maternal rather than participatory - "don't worry what it is, just trust us and take it".

I found the cost of my antiobiotics to be quite a surprise - $125. Whether this is an inflated private market price because they are branded or something, or the same as what they'd cost in the UK I have no idea.

Cost of private health insurance (basic cover with claim limits applied) for me is £85 to £97 a month depending on how desperate they are for the business (they quote me unprompted every quarter), for those who maintain that we should be able to opt out of NIS contributions and find our own pension and health cover then bear that in mind, if you're a family of four then where would you find three to four hundred pounds a month for limited health insurance ?

And where will you find the money when unemployed or retired, there's no cradle to grave cover when you have no NHS.



One other thing - I find that when insurance companies get into a market for provisioning services then the cost of those services increases dramatically, which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect when one large commissioner of services enters any market, usually bulk buying gets you big discounts, not the other way around. Just as a "for example", have you ever taken a car into a car body workshop for some dents to be removed or a respray job and what is the first question they ask you "Is it an insurance job ?" Now why do you think they ask that question ?

Just for information, have a read of this article on how much it costs to be ill in the USA and how the system is cash driven in a constant upward spiral of increasing costs. rlhttps://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tim-bradley/cherish-the-nhs_b_7007368.htmlrl

Not only that when you get towards retirement cover will cost about 10 times what you said. Not only that it would not necessarily cover big ticket items / emergencies.

AND - have a read of that article I linked to - it doesn't even cover the total amount of the care that you thought you were covered for, not only are you liable for the first xx% of all costs but if the hospital or doctor finds that the insurers baulk at any element of the treatment they gave you then YOU have to pay for it.

Its one thing to slip through legislation that allows your Health Authority to outsource treatment and care but the next stage is to start speaking of personal insurance to cover care - thats when we need to take out the torches and pitchforks.

The use of "all" had two conditions, the age and location of the estates, as opposed to the sweeping generalisation of all estates regardless of location.

My point still stands, these estates aren't community hubs or whatever term they use anymore, they've become areas to dump those unwilling or unable to help themselves.
transport was inadequate.Many people felt isolated;there were no facilities for older children to 'let off steam' and vandalism began to spoil the attractive appearance. Many of the residents are one parent families who have moved in from other parts of the country and find it hard to cope without help from relatives. '"

And the armed forces, the civilian army AKA the police, the fire service,the civil service, parliament itself.

It's nice to read self confessed classic Tory.

Lacking in humanity, social skills, but full of xenophobia and greed.

You must be proud.

I admire your courage.

Quite the class warrior aren't you. You lost. Get over it.

Well I must admit I have come back to this thread fairly late but I have to say BobbyD your economic ineptitude never fails to disappoint.



The point is you house the population. Without it costing them an arm and a leg and without them being in debt to bankers. For those who can't afford a mortgage the "point" is they are housed.

It also means house prices do not rise at stupid rates way beyond inflation. It doesn't preclude home ownership if that is what you want. On the contrary it makes home ownership cheaper as a large relatively cheap rental market keeps house price inflation in check.

As to Bob Crow the worst thing a government ever did was to start means testing applicants for council housing (Labour govt mistake by the way). That meant council house estates became ghettos for the poor and the unemployed which before the great council house sell off instigated by that idiot Thatcher they never were. You used to get a mix and society (tough concept for you to grasp admittedly) was better off for it.

The bottom line is we have a not insignificant percentage of people in this country who can't afford to put a roof over their heads and because council housing has been sold off over the decades we have a simple choice. House them in private rented accommodation (including B&B's for Gods sake) or leave them homeless. If we house them it costs a fortune as private rents are so high. Who's fault is that? The Tories. No one else. And you pay for it through your taxes which could be better spent elsewhere.

This government and others before it have borrowed money to pay housing benefits, if only they'd invested the same amount of money in building truly affordable homes for rent, we'd at least have an asset that would continue to yield an income. Instead they have pi[iss[/ied it against the wall of private landlords

I must admit the rise of the private landlord vs the fall of council or housing association properties is one of the more worrying aspects simply because its obvious to all that the private landlord has no concern over the area, nor often over the tenants in their properties.

The Ch4 program "Britains Benefit Tenants" showed an example of this last week, a tenant in a back-to-back two bed terrace house in a part of Leeds that I knew in the 1960s as being a working class family area owned and operated almost totally by Leeds City Council, the program followed an agent who managed the property for an absentee landlord who was based in London, had bought a handful of similar properties in Leeds at auctions because they were so much cheaper than in London, and then handed the stock over to an agent to manage, he was happy to admit that he had not been to Leeds for at least a year.

The tenant thought the house was fantastic, it was the first time he'd lived in accomodation that wasn't shared and his housing benefit covered the rent - problem was that he had a problem with the local gangs who eventually drove him out of the house, the presence of the TV crew persuaded the landlord to come up to Leeds to meet the agents and look at his property but all he was concerned about was tarting it back up and getting another benefits tenant in ASAP, no concern for the previous tenant (who had to go to shared accommodation) and absolutely no concern for what had caused the problem in the first place.

That in a nutshell is the problem, for no single landlord is big enough to tackle troublesome tenants, the whole of that area is now in the hands of dozens if not hundreds of private landlords who don't know each other and care little for the area at all and who are happy to take a hit of £500 for clean-up fees once a year if they can draw £800 a month in rent (which is what he was getting) for a house that he probably paid £40k for (if that).

Plenty of money to be made as long as you don't give a damn about how your tenants have to live.

The Welfare State has always operated on a ponzi scheme basis, even the mythical Maggie and her magical axe never actually managed to cut total public spending, what she actually managed was to slow down the growth of public spending for a time. You've paid your stamp but it's already been spent on somebody else, I'm in the same boat, possibly worse if some people get their way and people of my age ultimately end up getting no state pension despite a full contribution history.

Maybe we should yearn for the good old days before the sun set on the Empire, when Britannia ruled the waves, the shipyards kept her afloat and the coal mines powered the collosus? The market had a very different dynamic then, although many economic historians would argue the costs were actually higher, at least thous communities you mention thrived after a fashion?