Trump says NHS must be 'on the table' in post-Brexit trade deal

[sheepfarm]

51. Oh dear! Tiny Hands Trump has just "dropped a bollock"...

...as we say over here.

The main Brexit pushers three years ago in the run up to the referendum complained about Obama warning the UK that they would "be in the back of the queue" for a trade deal with the USA post-Brexit, complaining about a foreign political leader interfering with a national vote.

Unless they are actual advocates for wanting to asset strip the NHS to a full or mostly private voluntary insurance model, then anyone who supports Brexit still whom heard Trump mention what they did will either have their head in their hands, and or seriously consider changing their mind about Brexit.

That slogan on the side of the red bus, if it wasn't already meaningless, has just been buried ten foot under by a POTUS who may have not realised at the time what he has done!

The NHS is a sacred cow in British politics. Not even Margaret Thatcher dared to dismantle the NHS during her government's reign, instead limiting reform to the way internal markets in the NHS were conducted. Some more reforms have been made since then by various governments, but a strong point of principle remains in that treatment is free at the point of delivery - the only notable payment is usually for prescription medicine. And that's only in England, and it's largely subsidised at a flat-rate cost, and that's only for those not entitled to free prescriptions like children, the elderly, the unemployed & low waged, those with long term health conditions etc. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, prescription medicine is universally free.

The NHS most certainly isn't perfect. There are currently increasing waiting lists, getting an appointment to see a family doctor on the same day in many areas is close to impossible, most sectors are under financial strains etc. However the near universal attitude among the British public is that it's not the core of the system that is broke, but that the system isn't being given the right resources to run at the best it can. Opinion polling over decades have shown ongoing popular support for a small or modest increase in income tax if it was ring fenced for the NHS.

The irony in all of this is that the demographic that weighed the most towards voting for Brexit was the over 50's - the part of the population that in the future will be depending upon a present day NHS the most. Tell those especially close to retiring what their medicine costs and potential insurance premiums will be, assuming no American-style Medicare is put in place, and the penny might just drop with quite a lot of them.

Seriously if the main figureheads of those whom want Brexit revisited by either cancelling the Article 50 notice or by a second referendum/peoples vote can't make hay of this dropped bollock over the summer, then they don't deserve anything.