US-style healthcare would be a disaster for our NHS patients

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Northerner

Admin (Retired)
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
As a GP working in London, it is not uncommon for me to hear people say they can’t afford prescription charges, or that they don’t have the money to buy their medication until they get paid at the end of the month. Some drugs are so expensive they are wholly out of people’s reach. “But if this is such an effective treatment, why isn’t it available free on the NHS?”, patients ask me.

I often struggle to respond. No one should be denied care on account of their ability to pay for treatment. Yet this is now a daily reality for many people, due to the creeping privatisation of our healthcare system by successive governments.

And, as a recent report by Channel 4’s Dispatches has shown – the programme revealed that US pharmaceutical companies have already been discussing raising drug prices in the event of a US/UK trade deal post-Brexit – denial of treatment on the NHS looks set to get a whole lot worse.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...style-healthcare-nhs-patients-election-health
 
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