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If people have a disease they are treated, free of charge, by the NATIONAL (not postcode) Health Service.

So why should people with Alzheimer's DISEASE have to pay for care?

Surely a great many people already pay, by having benefits reduced, if in longterm care

Any pay as you go Route will be the end of the NHS whereby People will be put off from seeing a Doctor until their Conditions leaves them with NO CHOICE but to seek Medical help which by that time it would mean that a Persons medical condition will be far worse than if had they HAD seeked treatment in the First - Place, for I don't think much of ANY ideas being made by ANY SELF - APPOINTED Roving un-representative Economist whom are well endowed by being vastly over-paid by trying to tell the Poorer sections of Scotish Society how they might pay for expensive treatment.

To ALL you Self-Rightious Economist I say, don't try your Preachings upon those whom use the NHS, since if ALL Economist can already afford to pay for Private Treatment, then just go ahead and do so, since YOU CAN afford to already.

Professor Bell is to be congratulated for bringing the debate back to basics. The reason for care in the community and the rise in Care Home provision is and was twofold. Firstly it kept people out of long stay hospital beds which are and were hugely expensive. Secondly generally long stay Hospital beds provided a much poorer quality of care, yes patients were nursed and fed, but little was provided in terms of caring for the whole person.
If we remove free personal care, then something will have to replace it, it seems to me that it is foolish to assume because you start charging that nothing else will change. I have experience of just how many people are supported at home, partially by provided service but mainly by family and friends, this is the great unpriced part of our care system, and without them we would indeed have a crisis.
At heart there is a fundamental principle at stake in this matter, do we believe in an NHS free from cradle to grave, or do we intend to amend this bedrock principle and if we do the consequences could be profound for all of us and not just financially.

The NHS is not free. Further, those that pay the most are the least likely to use it. What is fair in that?

The biggest beneficiaries of long term healthcare support seem to be those that contribute the least, understand the benefit system and shout the loudest.

How is it that there are so many people in our society that feel entitled to so much but when it boils down to it have actually contributed very little?

Any sort of charging is unfair. As someone points out some people are paying for the health service but make little use of it while others are no longer paying tax , but make a lot of use of it. They however have paid their dues over the years when they did pay tax. What is truly unfair is those who neither work nor pay tax, indeed live totally off the taxpayers being treated free by the health service as a right. Some types of treatment also should not be free at any time, cosmetic surgery purely for vanity and treatment for self inflicted obesity for instance which should not be paid for out of the public purse. Treatment for addiction should also,while it cannot be refused , be on a least cost and results only basis.

I'd like to see all hospital patients charged for their meals. Nobody gets free meals at home, so why are they free in hospital? I also think hospitals could make a fat profit by selling food to order to the patients.

Go into any hospital ward, and the great majority of patients are eating food brought in by their friends/families (usually takeaways), because they don't like the free hospital food. There's a gap in the market there.

Another attempt to punish those that have saved and contributed all their lives when they need help the most.

Basic, free and equitable care for all is what we paid our taxes for.

A basic level of care is all that is required and should be offered to all.

I would then have no objection if people were then be given a choice of whether they wish to pay for an upgraded service (private rooms, TV etc). That however would be seen as elitist and unfair by the social cohesion diversity obsessed brigade.

When those with savings or assets start having their basic care means tested then that is when the NHS dies.

I thought that the National Insurance Contributions were meant to cover this. Or has the NI become like the Road Fund Licence, just another not so stealthy tax.

Why don't people ask the politicians about the real financial black hole that is underfunded NHS pension costs?

According to COINS NHS Scotland spent £42 113 000 on unfunded pensions in March 2010.

Why doesn't Professor Bell (or even the media) look at COINS?