before the usual suspects dismiss this as smear, lies or lefty propaganda?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ni ... ng-4617184
Nigel Farage has been caught on camera admitting he wants to replace the NHS with a US-style private insurance health system.
The Ukip chief insists that he and his party are against privatising the health service and are fighting next week’s Rochester & Strood by-election promising to protect it.
But Mr Farage was left red-faced when footage of him saying he would feel more “comfortable” if Britain’s healthcare system was opened up to the “marketplace” emerged today.
Health unions and Labour MPs accused him of secretly plotting the end of the NHS.
Speaking to UKIP supporters just two years ago Mr Farage said: “I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.
“Frankly, I would feel more comfortable that my money would return value if I was able to do that through the marketplace of an insurance company, than just us trustingly giving £100billion a year to central government and expecting them to organise the healthcare service from cradle to grave for us.”
The UKIP leader made the remarks, which surfaced in a video published by the Guardian, on his 2012 “Common Sense” tour of the country.
Other footage showed him proposing slashing the BBC so that it focused on radio rather than TV and reducing the £145.50 licence fee to as little as £40.
He also suggested making people on the dole for more than six months pick up litter and that there was a big problem with employee rights and protections such as maternity leave for small firms.
But his remarks on the NHS have sparked most outrage.
Speaking at a meeting in East Sussex, Farage said: “I think we’re going to have to think about healthcare very, very differently....
“I just feel with the whole healthcare service – one promise Blair did keep is that he would increase expenditure; we’ve doubled expenditure on the NHS in 15 years – and we haven’t got frankly double the return.”
Yet this simple graph shows that he's wrong about emulating the US on healthcare.
Labour’s Andy Burnham said most voters would be horrified by his remarks.
The shadow Health Secretary, said: “Nigel Farage poses as a man of the people, but his views on the NHS are out of step with 99% of the public.
“Farage can drink as many pints as he likes, but he’ll never be able to distance himself from these views that would go down like a lead balloon in pubs and clubs across the land.
“It is now plain for all to see that a vote for Ukip is a vote for the privatisation of the NHS.”
A UKIP spokesman said health was an area where the party’s policy has developed the most over the past few years and Mr Farage’s comments in East Sussex no longer represented his views.
“Obviously things have moved on significantly since then. That was then and this is now. It doesn’t stand up to say that’s still his view.”
The Ukip spokesman said there was some truth in the idea that something has got to give in the NHS but it would be reckless and impractical to go that way in the foreseeable future.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ni ... ng-4617184
