Clegg Wants More Private NHS Provision

If you want more public funds going into the private medical sector, voting Lib Dem is the way to go.

On health, [David Laws] revealed that the party was looking at plans to fund private treatment if the NHS kept patients waiting too long ... "If a hospital doesn't deliver the treatment within a reasonable period of time, say six months, the penalty they face is that the patient has the power to say 'I'm taking that money' and exit into the private sector, and the NHS will have an obligation to fund the whole private sector cost." ... Other plans include an expansion of the use of private treatment centres to perform minor surgery when NHS hospitals cannot cope ... Mr Laws, MP for Yeovil, said the Lib Dems would be more radical than the Tories.

The emphasis should be on expanding public sector capacity in the NHS. Then, you wouldn't have to subsidise private healthcare with general taxation. As David Hinchliffe, the Labour chair of the Commons Health Select Committee, said, back in 2000:

"I feel it is very wrong of the government to get into bed with the private sector which has, over the 50 years of the NHS, constantly attempted to undermine the concept of state health care. To me giving it comfort at a time when it is known that the public sector is struggling is not something I would expect a Labour government to do."

It's ominous that Clegg's team, within days of the leadership change, are signalling that they're going to out-Tory the Tories. In the same article linked above, they also talk about having children in care being funded to attend private boarding schools.