With health specifically the goal is to have more privately owned profit making companies in the NHS. The NHS as it is constructed doesn't allow for this. But for the Conservatives this opportunity for them and their backers. For the public, there is a national pride in the NHS.
So we entered the pandemic with an already under-funded and stretched health care system.
Much to the chagrin of those in charge though... this has not led to any calls for privatisation. Nor has it led to a boom in people taking out private health care cover.
It turns out that the British stiff upper lip response to something they're nationally proud of is that they'd rather die than embrace health privatisation. So we're in uncharted territory... the playbook that had allowed the privatisation of almost everything else isn't working now, it's just killing people.
You seem to be missing a bit of context here - this was after the Global Financial Crisis when even the outgoing Labour Chancellor of the Exchequor admitted there was no money left https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/17/liam-byrne-...
>> So we entered the pandemic with an already under-funded and stretched health care system.
It's 12% of GDP currently, which isn't that out of step globally.
Even the unlikeliest of Conservatives seem to be waking up to Modern Monetary Theory [1]
This is simply untrue. (What is Livewell South West?) We've had private provision of NHS services for years and the Lansley reforms explicitly embed privatisation (state funded private provision) in the NHS. Commissioners are forbidden by the 2012 law from preferring NHS providers over NHS providers.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/7/section/75/enact...
We have a lot of private provision of NHS services (all GP practices are private providers!) and it just doesn't work.
Good for you guys.
Basic healthcare should be a public service to maximize most coverage at a reasonable quality level.
Not privatized to get the most money for the least amount of service, which is the practice of virtually every long-lived business.
What does collapse look like?
Well, in the early days, it looks very gentle. The four hour wait for ED treatment goes up a bit. Healthcare people say "Look! This is concerning!" and politicians say "eh, it's just winter pressure, we know things are rough in winter."
Or you say "Look at the waiting list for community eating disorder treatment, this is concerning!" and politicians say "we're taking people out of mental health hospitals and giving them treatment in the community, so there's a transition period" (they cut beds for ed treatment, but didn't also fund community ed treatment, so wait lists have gone up a lot).
It's like Buckaroo or kerplunk or jenga. You can load the donkey, pull the straws, pull the blocks, and stuff still sort of works (less safe, less effective, more harmful) but then something happens and blam you've tipped over into catastrophe.
There is no institution more powerful in shaping the minds of the public, and they do very frequently act as a monolith, especially in the UK.