US plans for British Health Care - OMFG!

[malaise]

TTIP being negotiated between EU and US threatens to make privatisation of UK health services permanent, say critics
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/07/voters-want-nhs-exempt-us-trade-pact-ttip-eu-privatisation
<snip>
More than two-thirds of voters in 13 battleground constituencies want to see the NHS safeguarded from a new trade deal that critics say threatens to make the privatisation of UK health services permanent.

The deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), is being negotiated behind the closed doors at the European commission, between EU bureaucrats and delegates from the US. It is the largest bilateral trade deal ever negotiated – worth an estimated £4bn to UK GDP.

But critics say the TTIP threatens to make the outsourcing of health services in Britain irreversible by allowing US multinationals, or any firm with American investors, to sue any future UK government if it attempted to take privatised health services back into public ownership, jeopardising their profits.

[djean111]

1. The world is getting pretty well fucked, isn't it.

I cannot vote for Hillary, with her TPP.
At some point, picking a lesser evil is just stupid. I'll just get in the hand-basket.
As an American, the trade deals we are pushing make me ashamed. And it is not like those deals help American WORKERS.

[BrotherIvan]

4. It is the current administration,

of which she was a part, that is pushing the TPP. The president referenced fast track in a State of the Union speech.

[djean111]

5. I know. She is, to me, just a more right-leaning version of Obama.

I feel as if we are frogs who started with a warm bath, and now the water is close to boiling. While pretty music is played.

[cui bono]

8. That's pretty much it. The water getting hotter is the Dem Party moving rightward.

It's already the same as the moderate GOP of the 80s right now. Turn up the temperature with TPP and blammo.

Hopefully the world will revolt. We need mass worldwide protests about this. (Even though it's not in existence yet.)

[Samantha]

16. You are correct that it is the current administration pushing it but

the actual start of the talks began under (guess who) the Bush Administration:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed regional free trade agreement that is currently being negotiated by twelve countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam). The agreement began in 2005 as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4). Member countries set the goal of wrapping up negotiations in 2012, but contentious issues such as agriculture, intellectual property, and services and investments have caused negotiations to continue into the present,[7] with the last round set to meet in Ottawa from July 3 to July 12, 2014.[8][9] Passage of the TPP is one of the primary goals of the Obama administration’s trade agenda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

When one administration ends and another starts, there is an obligation to continue the programs in progress. If it were not like that, other countries as well as corporations would not have any confidence in commencing deals with the U.S. But I am sure President Obama will be saddled with all of the criticism of the downsides of this trade agreement. I personally hope that he gives all appearances of having negotiated in good faith but could not muster support from the Congress.... The Republicans will jump for joy; the question is how many Democrats will we have and which ones will balk.

It is always great to see you posting at this site. I hope all is well with you.

Sam

[BrotherIvan]

18. Hi Cat Lady!

Good to see you! Say hi to the kids!

[Samantha]

22. Not to digress from the theme of this thread but

you would be very proud of them. They are so wonderful, unlike those in the Bush* administration who started the TTP negotiations....

Sam

[BrotherIvan]

25. Nothing like Bush!

Cuteness and love is the anti-matter of all things Bush.

I guess I am fatigued from all the terrible legacies of that administration lingering into this one.

[arcane1]

2. Wow, that's some serious bullshit right there. I hope the UK resistance is MIGHTY to this!!

I have little hope for this side of the Atlantic, since our media will portray privatization as the Greatest Thing Ever, and the Brits as a bunch of commies who cling to a failed system.

But seriously, how sick in the head does one have to be to support this? How sick must one be to WRITE the damned thing???

[djean111]

3. All about the profits.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. This is war. War upon regular, non-wealthy humans around the globe

by the rich and non-human corporate concerns.

And they're doing everything they can to hide the fighting form us until it's too late and we have no chance to resist.

[malaise]

30. This is FASCISM plain and simple

Corporations are not only people - they are now being given more power than our governments. It is time for humanity to rise up and say EFUCKINGNOUGH!! NO WE WILL NOT TAKE THIS - FUCK THIS NEO-LIBERALISM ON STEROIDS.

[CountAllVotes]

58. +1,000

n/t

& recommend!!!

[riverbendviewgal]

7. This will not hold for Canada either

Canadians LOVE their health care. They do not want privatization. Stephen Harper likes privatization but he will not be reelected.

[laundry_queen]

10. Canadians would go to war to protect their health care

I'm Canadian BTW. Seriously, I've actually asked people (in my poli sci class, family and friends - many of them are conservatives). The main premise seems to be they will pry my healthcare from my cold dead hands, LOL. Oh and "the American system sucks" thrown in for good measure. I don't know any Canadians who would accept this without strong opposition. Think about what happened in the Quebec student protests x 1000 in every single city in the country. For a start.

[kag]

15. Good for you!

And good for your country! i wish those of us on the south side of the 49th parallel were that enlightened. My husband and I are starting have serious talks about baling from the US and heading for saner places.

[LittleGirl]

24. We stopped talking about it and

are actively doing it.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

29. Where to? (n/t)

[LittleGirl]

38. Somewhere in the EU

Husband grew up in London and HQ (where he works is in Switzerland) and we lived in Germany for awhile before. Who ever offers a job and we're out of here.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

42. I'd bolt, too.

Good luck.

[LittleGirl]

44. why thank you! n/'t

[malaise]

31. Well you'd better stand up to Harper and his goons

because this is the plan.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. hopefully the British general population

is smarter than ours.

[dixiegrrrrl]

45. The TTIP is facing headwinds all over Europe

because enough word has leaked to show its intent.

One of the major features is that any corporation, anywhere in the world, can sue any country that "threatens" its profits.
A threat as in...... denying that corporation anything it wants.

People are starting to realize they will lose sovereignty thru the TTIP.

Sadly, Greece, Spain, Ireland and some other countries have already given up sovereignty to the banks, by accepting the current austerity programs.

[neverforget]

11. All hail corporate power!

Fuck the TTIP.

[blkmusclmachine]

12. Time to reconsider some 2nd Amendment remedies, yes?

[NCcoast]

49. Careful...

Suggesting '2nd Amendment remedies' is only permissible for right wing nuts. If you stand anywhere left of center right it's sedition.

[Helen Borg]

13. The NHS works well.

The Brits don't really understand how lucky they are.

[LeftishBrit]

27. We do, but our fucking government doesn't.

http://www.keepournhspublic.com/index.php

[Blue Idaho]

33. Beware Privatization!

I've been following this fight for the last six or eight months. Seems like the government in power has learned much from the rabid right in America. They are busy under-funding essential services and under-staffing facilities and then using the public's frustration to convince them the only way to make healthcare work is by privatizing and selling health insurance to the masses. It's sick.

As someone else smarter than me said "The NHS isn't unworkable it's just underfunded."

Spread the word across the UK - once healthcare is privatized - the inverse care law will come into effect. The law states that:

“To the extent that health care becomes a commodity it becomes distributed just like champagne. That is rich people gets lots of it. Poor people don’t get any of it.”

Julian Tudor Hart, 1971.

[malaise]

35. Won't be long before they take our organs

and I'm serious.

[LeftishBrit]

46. As I have said before, re US- style healthcare

'We have seen the future - and it doesn't work!'

I am sure that future governments will seek to reverse the changes; the question is how much damage will be irreversible by then.

[Helen Borg]

48. That is why they are trying to make them irreversible.

The UK does not need no stinking US health insurance companies!

[WillyT]

14. Huge K & R !!!

[Cleita]

17. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that governments no longer work for we the people and

are basically being used as vehicles to collect workers money and spend it on multi-national corporations and military weapons. I think we are going to have to start forming cooperatives for our needs. I already bank at a credit union, which is owned by the clients. I have in the past been a member of a utility cooperative, which worked quite well and was less expensive than a private corporation delivering the same services. I think we need to form cooperatives for the workplace too and for health care. It's the only way we are going to save this country and the world at large I believe at this point in time.

[BrotherIvan]

23. Agreed

And people need to know that a corporate brand is less "trustworthy" or desirable than a co-op product or service. Basically anything advertised should be uncool. I don't know how to get it done, but if young people were taught that local, community things were far more valuable than any corporate item, we could get there.

[malaise]

32. Slowly?

I reached that conclusion a while back, but then we've been raped by the IMF and the neo-liberal goons (foreign and local) for way longer than you folks.

[Cleita]

39. Yeah. Sometimes I'm not too bright.

I really had hope that if we elected the right people into office that things would turn around. I've lost that hope. We have to figure out a way around our overlords instead until they become irrelevant to us.

[Jack Rabbit]

19. We must not obey

The Koch-funded Tea Party may think Obamacare is tyranny, but we know better.

The TPP is the 21st Century Stamp Act.

[J_J_]

20. why don't any politicians talk about what happened to the economy and where our jobs went?

If they are so proud of the work they do for us, why is this new agreement not being discussed in public?


Why are we allowing the elite to screw us over like this?

The only way they get away with it is the media.

Is it time to protest the media?

[NealK]

21. Stop the fucking Planet, I want to get off.

[LeftishBrit]

26. Words fail me (nt)

[malaise]

34. You're right - this should be the last straw

for the 99% everywhere

[blackspade]

28. This trade 'deal' just gets shittier with every new bit of info.

Corporate profits are the only selling point to these deals, which is why they are secret.

[Gumboot]

36. Thatcher's ghost, still doing its evil work.

If the Brits don't riot over this, then I think civilisation is over and done with.

The NHS is the envy of the world. Please don't sell it out to turds like Mitt Romney.

[littlewolf]

37. OMG when I first read the headline

I thought the US had plans like the british healthcare system.
then I read the entire thing. the headline caught my eye
though.

[woo me with science]

40. Fascism

is here.

[malaise]

50. I hope everyone understands that this is fascism

at work

[JCMach1]

41. Deals like this are dangerous as they extra-Democratic...

Time for a Constitutional Amendment to have all trade treaties ratified by national referendum.

[FairWinds]

43. It really pains me to say this, but . .

in this respect Obama is worse than Dubya.
Unlike Bush, Obama ran for office in 2008 as a progressive,
with a promise to re-negotiate NAFTA.
Here's Bruce A. Dixon of the Black Agenda Report . . (April 22, 2009)
"During the campaign Barack Obama's campaign deliberately led supporters to imagine he favored the reopening of the wildly unpopular North American Free Trade Agreement, which most agree has cost millions of jobs, driven down wages in the U.S. and Mexico, increased the gap between rich and poor and driven millions of Mexican farmers off the land, into cities and to the U.S."

[ReRe]

47. All I can figure is...

... they're trying to force a revolution upon themselves, malaise. Because that's what they'll get if they try to steal UK's universal healthcare from them. Wonder if they are going to do the same thing with all other countries that have universal healthcare systems? Like in CANADA?

[malaise]

51. Well Merkel won't allow it for Germany

but note that the negotiations are with the EU which suggests more countries than Britain. They are fucking crazy. They want everything for themselves.

[ReRe]

52. It's really hard to discuss the treaties...

... because we don't know what's in them! It's beginning to look like a high-class terrorist heist of the whole effing world. They're taking us down and by God they are going to take the world down with 'em. Truth has become as strange or stranger than fiction. I wish I was reading this in a book of fiction so I could finish it and go back to reality. But it's real!

[malaise]

55. It's beginning to look like a high-class terrorist heist of the whole effing world

It is

[Enthusiast]

53. That would be a great fucking idea.

[Enthusiast]

54. The TPP and the TTIP are a test.

They are test to determine just how powerless we the people have become.

[malaise]

56. Well we'd better show them

or we're doomed.

[pampango]

57. "Critics say" the US wants to do to the UK's NHS what UK conservatives have already done to it?

I love the UK's NHS and wish that were the goal of liberals in health care reform in the US rather than single payer. This article simply quotes "critics" who are afraid that the TTIP will do perpetuate what UK conservatives have done to the NHS. There are quotes from others that the TTIP will not do this.

Neither side presents any quotes or leaks from the negotiating draft of the agreement. To the extent that 'critics' are creating public support to prevent any action against the NHS (both in TTIP and the UK parliament), I support that.

Liberals should not be afraid of international negotiations in any area whether it in trade, nuclear weapons, peace/war, chemical weapons, disability rights, children's issue, etc. Of course, we should lobby for liberal provisions in any agreement (which is probably what UK 'critics' of TTIP are doing) rather than opposing negotiations and agreements in general.

[LeftishBrit]

59. 38 Degrees have a petition about this.

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/


Also see:

http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2014/07/10/ttip-eu-consultation/

[malaise]

60. Thanks

Good to see the resistance.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

61. Kick. (n/t)

[Wounded Bear]

62. Well, they kind of have to do that...

after all, they can't have any government health care systems out there as examples of how well they work.

[malaise]

63. Very true

so fugg all humanity