From The Independent (h/t Bob E):
Patients who exercise regularly and avoid fatty foods should go to the front of the queue for NHS operations, a think tank urges today.
People should be able to use supermarket bills and gym membership forms to prove they lead healthy lives and access priority non-emergency treatment, according to the centre-Left think-tank Demos. It also suggests that welfare claimants who exercise regularly should be given larger payments in recognition that they are behaving responsibly.
That all seems like the usual bansturbation, but the fun thing about Demos is that a lot of their more off the wall "research" is "generously supported by...". So let's look up the report, rather bizarrely titled Control Shift (yes we know you want to shift control, to yourselves, and it isn't funny):
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Marius Ostrowski and Katherine Stevenson for their contributions to this work – both were invaluable and I am very grateful. Also at Demos the advice, support and wisdom of David Goodhart, Claudia Wood, Duncan O’Leary, Ralph Scott, Sophie Duder, Josephine Brady and Rob Macpherson have been vital to this project. Thank you all.
This report is the final output of a long-running collaboration with Zurich [a large insurance company] – whose in-house experts have been generous with their time and insights.
And in case that wasn't clear, the foreword is co-written (or co-signed, at least) by the CEOs of Zurich UK General and Zurich UK Life.
Are you all set?
59 minutes ago
8 comments:
Great idea, make sure your low-risk customers are in front of the line to reduce payouts.
In the report they also introduce a rather disturbing new word: "nudge plus". I assume that means pushing people.
So, produce grocery receipts (which might not even be yours) and show a bank statement showing payments to a gym you visit once a year and hey presto, front of the queue!
By this logic, someone who cycles to work every day and runs on weekends, but despises gyms, should come second in the queue.
And who keeps grocery receipts for years?
Why don't they just come out and say what they want - a system where the State determines if you get treatment or not, no appeal, no representation.
Kj, yes, and after pushing comes forcing.
FR, the possibilities for fraud are endless (buy veg first, pay, and then buy your booze and fags separately, for example) but that is not the point, the point is to push people into private health insurance!! He who pays the piper etc.
Great idea. Supermarkets could introduce special linked trolleys for all those two-trolley customers who will suddenly appear in huge numbers. Imagine the isle chaos.
AKH, no need, they'll just divide trolleys into two sections, one for Righteous purchases and one for Unrighteous purchases, the same as hotels not itemising pay per view films on your bill. Allegedly, not that I'd know.
Surely the NHS will need a virtually infinite army of receipt-checkers and box-tickers to go through the mountains of paperwork - unless, of course,they are planning on outsourcing the process to Zurich.
McH, ooh! That would be a double payout to the nice chaps from Zurich Insurance.
"Surely the NHS will need a virtually infinite army of receipt-checkers and box-tickers to go through the mountains of paperwork"
Isn't that a plus as far as the NHS is concerned? The government is always keen to spend tuppence to save a penny.
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