[Niall]

Originally Posted by Angus

I know exactly where you are coming from. I searched long and hard for a state school that I would be happy for my kids to attend, but in those days you had to live in certain catchment reas and I was offered the worst school in my area and it was my only offer. That is what prompted me to look at the private option and both my sons won scholarships based on academic ability. *Most private schools today still offer scholarships to those who cannot afford to pay the fees.

You will know that virtually every Labour MP hypocritically sent their own children to private schools, whilst advocating state schools for the masses. I doubt there's a single one of them that doesn't have private health care. So much for a fair and equal society and THEIR faith in state education and the NHS. "Do what I say, not do what I do" was the motto of the Labour Party.

There are a lot of excellent state schools, but in my day I did not have the option of choosing which one my children attended, since I could not afford to move out of the catchment area I was in. Like any good parent, I wanted the best for my children and I make no apology for choosing the private option. If I had the money I would also invest in private medical care. I am currently in the middle of a medical negligence claim against the hospital that treated my brother who recently died of cancer. He was treated abysmally and I want someone to acknowledge that, accept blame and apologise. The NHS is an utter shambles and it's about time we adopted the American system of medical health insurance which would ensure a better quality of care than what we have now.

People who bang on about social equality are usually the first ones to take full advantage of private schooling and private healthcare when they can afford it. I would never presume to remove freedom of choice from people as to how they spend their disposable income.

Okay fair play to you and what happened with your bother, I'm deeply sorry to hear that, but how you can sit there and claim that the American way of running things would be better baffles me absolutely.

I just don't understand. Have you not seen the obscene amount of money the average American is forced to fork out just for drugs? Operations are a whole other story. I read about a family once who had to sell their house just to get father treatment he needed. No-one should ever be forced to consider things like that. Healthcare should be something offered to everyone unconditionally..

And then there's the other matter of the health system being run as a business. The patients become customers and profit takes precedence over the quality of service provided to the patients. There are countless stories about American HMO's denying their customers service simply because the company is too stingy to fork over the money for an operation/medication/treatment which the person is actually covered for.

All in all the NHS, despite it's flaws is actually a healthcare system that is far superior to that in the US and to adopt their way of doing things would be to make a seriously large step backwards in how we run things.