It's likely that in a few short months, David Cameron will be the Prime Minister of Britain, heading a majority-Conservative government. Labour have only themselves and their corporate backers to blame, but I shudder to think what we are about to land in as a result.
Cameron recently met with "Nurses for Reform," an extreme pro-privatisation outfit that advocates dismantaling the NHS completely and replacing it with private insurance and healthcare provided by private companies.
An American-style system.
Because that's working so well for ya'll, right?
The group is led by Helen Evans, and backed by far-right, Euro-skeptic and Libertarian interests. It has members throughout Europe and intends to take down not just the NHS, but the rest of our health infrastructure. The director of the Adam Smith Institute is on their advisory board, as are a variety of people with interests in the private healthcare sector (including one whose private healthcare company, PROMIS, recently went bust). The board of trustees is not full of nurses--no surprise there, as the vast majority of nurses in the UK strongly support the NHS.
One of their main financial backers appears to be the Heritage Foundation.
In other words, this is a blantant example of an astroturf campaign.
One of the most interesting items to be found on their Web site is an essay by Joe Peacott, which decries not only health cae reform but Medicare as well. Oddly enough, I know Joe's name from his years as an individualist anarchist activist--looks like he is taking the corporate shekel now (and yes, it is the same Joe Peacott). He takes what I would characterise as an extreme Libertarian position on healthcare--one which, as a nurse and union member, he should know better than to support.
Evans was a nurse at one time, but is now a "health economist". She is a frequent source of inaccurate NHS scare stories, which she sends out as press releases. Her real job as head of this astroturfing outfit appears to be public relations. She is a consultant to Farsight Strategic Political Intelligence Ltd, which her husband Tim Evans also works for. It's a small PR consultancy that specialises in political intelligence and...running astroturf campaigns. You can find out more about him here: www.policyexperts.org/cv/EvansTim.doc. He is also head of the Libertarian Alliance, a think tank. More importantly, for many years he was head PR shill for a consorrtium of private healthcare providers in the UK. After that he even helped Slovakia privatise their healthcare system. This didn't work out very well--since 2003, Slovakia has beenmoving away from neo-liberal reform in this sector (see www.psiru.org/reports/2009-05-H-CEE.doc).
What they met with Cameron about is a secret, but their Web site and informed commentary indicates that it is about "top-ups" for NHS services, similar to what you call co-pays. The word "top-ups" was used more recently to disguise the introduction of tuition fees for UK students. It started as a small co-pay, is now £3000/year, and is about to rise to £7000/£10000 per year. Talk about Orwellian phraseology, which is far more than the state currently pays per student, making the phrase "top-up" highly suspicious to me.
So help us out here, folks. What's the best way to reveal what this group is and what it's about? Anyone recognise any of the other players involved?