Junior Doctor Contract Dispute/Strike

If it was going to put in place, that is probably the wrong quesiton. If one was to consider it, it would only make sense to start with the principle of applying to all and then working out what exceptions one might have. A good starting point would be to consider what happens in other countries where such fees apply and seeing what they do and how those work in practise. Also, we have charges for prescriptions but with exemptions: whether those exemptions are right ones or not I have no idea, but again its not a bad place to start from.

Why is it that employees in the public sector think they are entitled to decide how much they should be paid by the rest of us and that it is acceptable to use blackmail to get their own way?   It is even worse in France where I live where they are striking to prevent the introduction of measures by a socialist government to increase the level of employment.   Entirely selfish behavior.

It's a very nice easy soundbite, but what does that actually mean?

What IS "the NHS"?
Is it A&E? That's already 24x7x365.
Is it a checkup at your local dentist? That's clearly unnecessary and unrealistic.
So where, in between those two extremes, do you say "Well, no, OK - 24x7x365 isn't needed there"?

As anybody who's ever been or been near somebody seriously unwell in hospital will know only too well, there are a lot of bits of the NHS that already ARE 24x7x365. And there's a lot that isn't. What we're talking about is just jiggling the line left or right a bit on specific services and in specific ways - and a lot of the time, what we're talking about is the availability of services and skills IN CASE they're needed - which'll inevitably mean lots of sitting about un-called-upon. And, at other times, there'll be mad rushes when lots is happening at once. It's like anything - do you set staffing levels to cope with the peaks or to be occupied during the troughs? You don't know which is going to be which in advance.

So, at the end of the day, it comes down to how much money DO you throw at it?

And, yes, of course that's ABSOLUTELY relevant - after all, the gov't currently spends about £140bn on health annually, out of a total of £730bn - and that's £85bn more than they receive in... There's 65m people here - so that's just over £2,150 each on health, out of a total of £11,230 - with a shortfall of £1,300 each. £53bn, £815 each, goes out in interest on the £1.5tn debt - £24,000 each.

My point exactly. Yet routine dentistry comes under "the NHS".

So if we're defining the 24x7 NHS as only those bits which could prove fatal, isn't that already pretty much covered 24x7?

The NHS really should be worried about TTIP. European companies took over our energy companies, now the USA wants a piece of our NHS.

Shall we wait until TTIP's actually been agreed before believing the ill-informed knee-jerk panic?
fullfact.org/europe/does-ttip-mean-privatisation-nhs/

The 13th round of negotiations between the EU and the US only completed yesterday. The results of those sessions will then be discussed and considered before deciding if there's agreement - which can then be voted on both sides of the Atlantic - or if a 14th round is needed. It almost certainly will be, and it's scheduled for July.
trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2016/april/tradoc_154480.pdf

The negotiations are nowhere near as secretive as is often claimed, which always makes me wonder why the opponents-on-principle are trying to prevent people finding out the reality.
trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1230

So the negotiations should be done with 800m people in the room; 300m on their side, 500m on ours? That's going to be... practical.

A union? Scaremongering? How unusual.

Unite have been staunchly and openly against TTIP on principle for several years, agreeing a motion to "adopt a clear position of outright opposition to TTIP" at their conference in July 2014. Odd, that, since it still isn't negotiated yet, let alone ready to vote on by the EU and the US... So they're happy to take a "clear position of outright opposition" without actually knowing what they're opposing? Nowt so closed as a mind...

www.unitetheunion.org/uploaded/documents/Unite%20TTIP%20Briefing11-19626.pdf

Interesting that they quote that old chestnut about corporations suing governments - they don't actually appear to understand that's always been the case.
uk.reuters.com/article/uk-tobacco-idUKKBN0TT1HA20151210 for just one case. Of the four companies named, I count two EU companies, a US company, and a Japanese company.

The only difference that seems to be in the TTIP negotiations is that it's highly likely US corporations will be able to sue EU member state governments directly, whereas now it's the EU subsidiaries that would do it. And how many globally-relevant US corporations don't have any kind of EU subsidiary? I suspect you can count them on the fingers of one foot. And, of course, they forget to mention that it'd be vice-versa, too. EU companies would be able to sue the US gov't directly, whereas now it would be their US subsidiary. Again, how many...?

But, hey, I don't happen to think it a bad thing that governments should actually obey the law and, if they don't, they should be open to legal challenge. Of course, actually winning any case is the test, rather than merely launching a case. And that would still be down to the courts of whichever member state. So, basically, they're saying that they don't trust UK courts to apply UK law to a case where a US company (with no EU subsidiary) is suing the UK government...

But, still, perhaps we should escape TTIP by leaving the EU, then the UK can try and negotiate an equivalent with the US directly (eventually)...? With so much less leverage... Yeh, what could possibly go wrong?