THIRD WAY RAIL:

Doctors say NHS must charge for care: Letter claims tax funding fails patients (John Carvel, April 3, 2006, The Guardian)

An open letter from 900 NHS doctors to be delivered to Tony Blair today warns that the health service cannot survive in its present form and that individuals should expect to pay for treatment in the future.

The doctors said a healthcare system funded only from taxes was bound to fail to meet patients' rising expectations. Rationing of services and bigger financial deficits were the inevitable result of preserving the status quo, they said.

The letter was drawn up by the pressure group Doctors For Reform, which claims to be politically unaligned. It calls on Mr Blair, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, to carry out urgent policy reviews.

The doctors' intervention is a direct challenge to Labour's mantra that the NHS should be free at the point of delivery, and it comes as the NHS in England is heading for a big overspend despite three years of record investment. [...]

The call for radical change will embarrass the government but also cause political problems for Mr Cameron, who has categorically ruled out any move away from a tax-funded NHS.

The doctors think he has misread the public mood.

The NHS is for Tories what Social Security has always been for the GOP, but for Mr. Cameron to be a great leader -- a la Thatcher, Blair, Clinton, Bush, Howard -- he needs to grab te bull by the horns.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 3, 2006 10:03 AM