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Bill: National Health Service
Details
Submitted by[?]: Social Progressive Party of Mordusia
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: November 3308
Description[?]:
| The National Progressive Party, in the promotion of national health, calls upon the Government to establish a National Health Service. NHS receives a LIMITED Charge. The primary goal is to provide an alternative to emergency room treatment. for minor or low priority triage cases (equal to enhanced first aid up to and including suture care), relieving pressure on the private health provision system and on costs to users of the private system. This goal will add choice, not decrease it for consumers. The NHS is not to operate as a competitor to private practice, but as a compliment, allowing Private firms who would like to get rid of the services offered by NHS to do so, specializing in their niche, while assisting those private firms who want to continue by relieving their patient load, allowing them to protect their price point and expand their own services to new areas not covered by NHS. The secondary goal of the NHS is to provide preventative medicine for citizens to remain in good health. Ultimately, the NHS should serve as a compliment to the private health provision industry to ensure that no Mordusian will ever have to go without primary and preventative care regardless of their ability to pay while preserving patient freedom to either use the NHS or to continue to use their private system, as they see fit. The NHS will provide an auxiliary to private health for all other non-intensive health care (pre-natal health, women's and men's health, pediatrics, nutrition, prescription dispensary, eye and vision and General Practice.) The NHS will be responsible for the administration of vaccinations. The NHS will also offer preventative and small restorative dental (dental hygiene and checkups and fillings.) The NHS will refer all other care to clinics, hospitals and specialists in the private sector. The NHS will NOT be involved in research of new drugs or testing of new drugs or techniques. The goal is to remain as efficient in its price point as possible while expanding coverage to each CITIZEN of Mordusia (and their dependent children). This Health Service shall recruit and train qualified members of the National Service Program to serve as primary care physicians. The NHS will also recruit physicians from local universities who are doing residency before completing their degree. Each NHS clinic will hire one Doctor holding the degree of Medical Doctor to oversee each clinic. The MD is the only member of the clinic qualified to issue prescriptions for medicines, based on recommendation of the primary care physician. The NHS will charge a token door fee for each use by ALL CITIZENS and their dependent children in Mordusia. The door fee will never exceed 10 MRD, and may be waived in cases of poverty, at the discretion of the clinic. The door fees may only be used to help offset the cost of the salary of the overseeing MD at each clinic. There shall be one NHS clinic established for each 50,000 CITIZENS in Mordusia. The estimated cost of operation of the NHS in the first (start-up) year will be 6 Bil MRD: 3 B to build clinics from Infrastructure, 2 B to Establish policies and Administration (in HSS budget), and 1 B increase to the Internal Affairs Budget to begin training doctors in the NSP in First Aid, small surgery, and various other programs offered by the NHS. Continuing costs would be approximately 1.5 B per year for enrollment purposes, regular maintenance of facilities and supplies, and continued training activities in the NSP. Total Budget for 10 years which we would ask the Government to consider, within the next Budget= 21B After that, the line would simply remain in the budget, and increases would only be necessary as the Government decided to increase coverage of the NHS. We fully encourage the Government to consider this plan and offer discussion to improve it before we move it to a vote. We will leave this bill open until after the next election. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Health care policy.
Old value:: Health care is private, but the government subsidises the cost of it for all citizens.
Current: There is a public health care system, but private clinics are allowed.
Proposed: There is a public health care system, but private clinics are allowed.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 21:19:37, May 21, 2012 CET | From | Mordusian Democratic Union | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | Excellent. You have our support. Joan Tosh Spokeswoman for Health matters |
| Date | 00:46:47, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | We will have to read through this, though we wonder what will change in practice besides the fact this will bother the Government in creating an entire administration in order to get the same results. We will await the advise of our colleague of the MFG, the Minister of Health. |
| Date | 03:10:18, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | The results will be that the government will stop subsidizing the private sector. |
| Date | 03:14:20, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | We believe that capitalism should sink or swim without any help from the Government. Therefore, in order to promote that goal without decreasing the outcomes for the population, we support end of subsidies to the private system, and a promotion of the public system. |
| Date | 10:29:29, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | The Conservatives will not leave the poor to die in the streets, this they may do in hospitals - albeit on our payroll. However, we will not have the Government enter the field of healthcare itself. It is not the duty of the Government, nor the profession, to create an administration, own hospitals, entertain doctors, &c. |
| Date | 18:01:35, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | It is the job to supply public goods. Therefore, at least some provision for public health is fully within the scope of Government obligations to the society. |
| Date | 18:09:44, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | We do not believe it is the Government's duty to "supply" public "goods". It is the duty of the Government to ensure happiness, safety and well being. That is why we are willing to pay for citizens' health care. This is already a compromise from our side. We do not wish the government is involved in any direct administration of the health care sector. We find it very hard to believe we are able to grasp the reasoning of the Progressives without the Progressives being able to understand ours. |
| Date | 18:53:27, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | Reliable access to free primary health care falls under "well Being". It is nice to see that the Speaker agrees with us. Our problem with subsidies, as well as vouchers on the Education side, is that it is a direct payment of public money to the private sector. Say what you like, but our public money are underwriting the bottom lines of the entities running our clinics and our schools. It is a mass intervention into the private sector, and continues to allow the private sector a say in the provision of health and education. We believe those are things that people cannot be denied, regardless of whether it is profitable to offer it, and we think that the Government should not be in the business of propping up capitalism. So there are two different reasons why we call for this: On the one hand is an ideological orientation toward capitalism, that it should sink or swim on its own, and on the other hand is a philosophical commitment to the Good Life for citizens regardless of their ability to pay for it. Our goal is both to establish a firm line between Capitalism and the Government, and to provide public goods for the taxes that people pay. We viewed this bill as a moderate attempt at establishing Free provision of health. If the Conservatives are stubbornly unwilling to support it because they are committed to continuing the subsidy of a private sector who is under no obligation to provide citizens the things that they need, they should simply say that. |
| Date | 19:05:31, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | We have said this before. Are we to be accused of hypocrisy of some sort? We have compromised, and we cannot compromise any further without any relevant trade-off. We look to other parties' opinion on this matter. |
| Date | 19:37:27, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | No. No accusations of hypocrisy. We simply note that the Cnnservatives couch their opposition to a robust public sector in terms of role of government, and we disagree with the Government's opinion on that matter. As for relevant trade offs, please inform us what relevant trade offs we can offer. We understand the messages we have received. We have said that is impossible, so we encourage the Conservatives to think of something else which could secure support for this bill. If there is nothing else, please say so and we'll forget about it until the next session when seat counts may be different. |
| Date | 22:15:56, May 22, 2012 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | Besides our objection to the creation itself, the NPP could perhaps offer a response to the following questions: - What about nationals who do not hold official citizenship? First of all: how many of these people are there? Isn't this a discriminating, yea, racist measure? - How is the scope of one clinic per 50.000 citizens to be deemed efficient if for a whole part of medical care patients are to be referred to other clinics? Why not one per 100.000? - How will the NPP prevent doctors with "bad grades" from "dropping in" the NHS, making it essentially a system for the poor, by the poor, poorly managed? - Is the budget figure realistic? In retrospect of our country's finances, we would expect the tenfold of the proposed budget for all these measures. 21B spread over 10 years? This is lower than the amount needed for our disarmament. |
| Date | 01:11:05, May 23, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | IN response to the Questions of the Speaker a) Nationals who do not hold official citizenship will continued to be served under the current system. This bill does not abolish that system, but suppliments it. If they like it, they can keep it. If they want the NHS system, they can become citizens and start paying taxes. Nothing racist, unless the racism is in the current law. As for the number of these people, you will have to ask the Internal Affairs Minister. We are not part of the government, and therefore do not have access to that information, and a formal census has not been conducted by the Government since before the Citizenship requirements were changed. b) 1 per 50,000 is thought to be a starting number. We are committed to pragmatism, so if more clinics are needed, we shall advocate to build more clinics. If fewer are needed, we will advocate the closure of superfluous clinics. We do not know, however, at this point, as the law has not even been moved to a vote yet, so there is no way to have determined the impact of the law which is still only being debated. c) We think the Conservatives equate anything "public run" with the adjective "poorly run." This is a hard ideological position, just as hard as the Conservatives have accused us of being in our ideology. We suggest that we try the program and deal with these problems as they arise rather than squashing the program before it even gets off the ground and then never needing to deal with it. But we turn the question around on our examiners: What is to stop bad doctors in the private system? We have ZERO regulations or control on the current medical establishment. We have no control over prices or quality of outcome. All we do is subsidize the private sector. How do we stop there from being bad doctors, which we know exist, in the private sector without any power to regulate them or sanction them. d) We believe it is realistic. Advising people on nutrition or giving people physicals is far less expensive than destroying a massive stockpile of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry safely. Our Party can do that for free. Plus, we believe that everything we spend money on it entirely overpriced, and we note the unwillingness of the Government to even attempt to address the super-inflated prices for our rather limited pubic services. |
| Date | 15:59:20, May 23, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | This bill may be DOA... We will move it to a vote anyway, and support it... If ti passes, we would like to work with interested parties in monitoring and improving outcomes. |
| Date | 16:01:28, May 23, 2012 CET | From | Social Progressive Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the National Health Service |
| Message | Parties are free to vote as they desire on this bill. We no longer consider this bill a fundamental bill, and would like to explore some possible alternatives. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 433 | ||||
| no | Total Seats: 215 | ||||
| abstain |
Total Seats: 102 |
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