On 2008-06-21 22:09:35 +0100, Roland Perry said:

Some people used "carbon copy" check-books in order to keep a copy
(rather than just having a counterfoil). I expect those cost more.

Did they write with quill pens?

On 2008-06-21 23:30:21 +0100, Frank Erskine
said:

Long before my time though - I'm 60 in half an hour or so... :-(((

Happy birthday, Frank.

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-21 09:12:54 +0100, Andy Burns
said:

On 21/06/2008 09:05, Andy Hall wrote:

Lottery money goes to things that should be funded in other ways.

Such as higher priced opera tickets?

I very much enjoy going to the opera

Now why doesn't that surprise me...

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-21 10:21:24 +0100, Linda Fox said:

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:36:15 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

I read some while ago that something like 95% of the population have
bought a Lottery ticket at least once. I was shocked. Why on earth
would people want to pay tax voluntarily?

Ever bought a beer, or petrol?

Linda ff

Of course. I could choose not to buy beer I suppose. It isn't
optional to buy petrol.

It is.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message 485c2c2f@qaanaaq, at 23:16:15 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
That's more a symptom of a bad dentist.

It takes a great deal of time to do a root canal treatment properly.
This should not be governed by time and cost but by doing a proper job.

Like I said, if the treatment isn't done properly, that's a bad dentist.

And if it is, under the NHS, its a very *poor* one. (financially)

Andy Hall wrote:

distribution decided upon by others. All the better if the
organisation is a registered charity and can recover tax from the
government. That is one area where the tax system does work properly.

IIRC Gorden had his fingers in that pie recently as well - its about to
stop working as well!


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 2008-06-22 01:11:56 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-21 10:21:24 +0100, Linda Fox said:

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:36:15 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

I read some while ago that something like 95% of the population have
bought a Lottery ticket at least once. I was shocked. Why on earth
would people want to pay tax voluntarily?

Ever bought a beer, or petrol?

Linda ff

Of course. I could choose not to buy beer I suppose. It isn't
optional to buy petrol.

It is.

Well I suppose that one can buy diesel.....

On 2008-06-22 01:11:07 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-21 09:12:54 +0100, Andy Burns
said:

On 21/06/2008 09:05, Andy Hall wrote:

Lottery money goes to things that should be funded in other ways.

Such as higher priced opera tickets?

I very much enjoy going to the opera

Now why doesn't that surprise me...

Why would you be surprised?

in 126380 20080621 113403 stuart noble wrote:
Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-20 22:56:21 +0100, Roland Perry said:

But we are dealing with a clueless organisation, or they wouldn't have
lost the money (misallocated it) in the first place.

Of course.

They have no incentive to try to work it pout unless you can bash them
over the head with something concrete like a cheque stub or bank
statement.

A cheque stub has zero value. I can write a cheque and it's stub (I
can just about remember how) and drop the cheque in the shredder. It
is not a proof of payment or of allocation of funds.

I am certainly not going to provide a copy of bank statements to local
authority bureaucrats. It isn't their business how I spend my money.



As far as I'm concerned, they can do what they like and can make
representations for the money. Should they wish to do that through
the courts they can do so.

That'll take a lot of your precious time.

Not really. I would simply pickup the phone, call my bank manager
and ask him to write a letter confirming payments made to the local
authority for the time in question.



Bits of paper are superfluous to being able to prove or not that
money was transferred to the recipient.
So I can go down the council office with my laptop and mobile
data card, and point at the screen? And they'd take that as *proof*?
Why on earth would you do that? What a waste of time. Let them
make representations for the money.
The 'representations' are letters saying "see you in court".

That's fine. Their solicitors will receive a string of very
lengthy letters by FAX demonstrating that monies have been paid and
when. That doesn't require the use of cheques or any other form of
treeware.

That'll take a lot of your precious time.

Ah but now it becomes a worthwhile sport. Generating letters from
standard paragraphs is very easy to do. I have a catalogue of them
accumulated over the years All of that would go in, taking me very
little time at all and including confirmation of transfer of funds.

The exposure of local government incompetence is a worthwhile
contribution to the community.



At my time of life I don't give a toss about time or money, having
enough of both to satisfy my needs. However, I still have the urge to
lob a hand grenade into my local post office.

You lack ambition. I have the urge to nuke the local & county council offices.

"tims next home" wrote in message

....


You STILL have an Ironmongers!

We have two local ones.

Mary

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-22 01:11:07 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-21 09:12:54 +0100, Andy Burns
said:

On 21/06/2008 09:05, Andy Hall wrote:

Lottery money goes to things that should be funded in other ways.

Such as higher priced opera tickets?

I very much enjoy going to the opera

Now why doesn't that surprise me...

Why would you be surprised?


That people actually enjoy the hammiest over acting and the most
completely OTT expression of middle class emotional and sexual repression?

Go figure.

I hear people watch East Enders and Coronation Street, too.

"Tim Ward" wrote in message
...
"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...

It was a rush job then? My passport renewals have been by normal post,
even though I once worked half a mile from one of their offices. They
only did callers by appointment.

In theory. In practice if you turn up and you're desperate enough they
might deal with you.

Have you tried this recently?

The "appointment" process that I used last year was far more regimented than
the one I used 20 years earlier.

tim

"tims next home" wrote in message
...

"Tim Ward" wrote in message
...
"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...

It was a rush job then? My passport renewals have been by normal post,
even though I once worked half a mile from one of their offices. They
only did callers by appointment.

In theory. In practice if you turn up and you're desperate enough they
might deal with you.

Have you tried this recently?

August 2005. Normally we check all the passports in January so we don't have
a problem come the summer holiday, but we somehow failed to do so that year
and discovered a few days before flying that one of the kids' passports had
expired. The earliest appointment available was several days after the
holiday started, so I went to P'boro anyway and found that there was a small
queue of such people - we were dealt with as and when there was sufficient
slack in dealing with the people who'd made proper appointments. This
service is *not* advertised (and, I imagine, *not* guaranteed); someone on
the phone had suggested that I might try just turning up, no promises, "but
I'm not supposed to tell you this".

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Limited - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

On 2008-06-22 10:47:45 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-22 01:11:07 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-06-21 09:12:54 +0100, Andy Burns
said:

On 21/06/2008 09:05, Andy Hall wrote:

Lottery money goes to things that should be funded in other ways.

Such as higher priced opera tickets?

I very much enjoy going to the opera

Now why doesn't that surprise me...

Why would you be surprised?


That people actually enjoy the hammiest over acting and the most
completely OTT expression of middle class emotional and sexual
repression?

Go figure.

Joe Green would turn in his grave if he heard you say that. You're
right though.




I hear people watch East Enders and Coronation Street, too.

After buying their Lottery tickets I imagine.

In article ,
Frank Erskine writes:
On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:51:21 +0100, "tims next home"
wrote:


"Frank Erskine" wrote in message
. ..

AND the ironmonger not too far away closes on a Wednesday afternoon!

You STILL have an Ironmongers!

Yes - it's a really good old-fashioned 'four candles' type place.

Yes, we've got one of those too, and it's always quite busy.
http://www.fleethampshire.com/2006Si...ages/FR234.htm

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In message 485d8aa0@qaanaaq, at 00:11:28 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

It all depends what hourly rate the dentist needs to earn where
he lives.
That would only set the bare minimum.
Minimum what?
Remuneration.
But for what lifestyle?

For the one that the market will support.

Perhaps the market (for dentistry) will only support an average
lifestyle, and the porsche-wannabes are now in the wrong profession.

I wouldn't mind if people in London and the southeast had
significantly higher prescription charges and dental fees, to reflect
the higher delivery costs.

We already do. £7 for a prescription item is already £7 more than the
socialist promise of the 1940s. Some brave new world.......

Wrong answer. Would you pay £12 in the southeast, to reflect the higher
cost of premises for the retail pharmacists?

With only 10% of people paying for prescriptions, I do wonder why they
bother; so it must be to establish some sort of "benchmark" for people
who don't pay to know how much better off they are. To that end I'd be
very happy for NHS patients to be given a dummy bill that says roughly
how much their treatment cost, so maybe they'd be a little bit more
grateful. And in the context of prescriptions not waste the ones that do
cost large sums of money.

Time in hospital can be counted in days, but there's no fee.

There's a huge fee, taken in tax, but you don't realise it.

There's an insurance premium paid to the government. What you don't get
is a dummy bill that says:

Heart bypass operation: £15,000
Three weeks in hospital: £21,000
Medication for the next three months: £3,000

So you know what payback you've had.

It's all very well people saying things like "that $WASTEDMONEY could
have paid for 10 hip replacements" when the public has no idea how much
a hip replacement actually costs.

But I agree that filling in an insurance claim form for every £50, 7
minute, GP appointment is a really good way to waste time and money.

I presume that you have never filled in a healthcare claim form or
initiated a claim.

I've done it the USA many times. Usually you have to do it before
they'll treat you.

All that I have to do is to pick up the phone, call the insurer and
give a description of the ailment. 30 seconds and there is approval
for three months. Done.

I've been sat in a UK private hospital with everything "arranged", and
then suddenly the admin people say "sorry we've not received the
go-ahead for some reason - do you want to give us your credit card
number, or to come back when we've clarified this with your insurer".

But they can break even as long as they don't have Mercs?
That's the sort of thing, yes. And as you agreed in your reply,
having the latest Merc when you can't afford it is very much a
self-inflicted injury.
Circular argument. Why shouldn't it be possible for a dentist to
afford a Merc if they want one?
Or a road sweeper. (Own a Merc, not a dentist own a road sweeper!)

Huh?

Why does a dentist deserve a Merc if a road sweeper doesn't?

The Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as it costs to run
the NHS.

Citation?

It's a fairly well known statisitc, usually expressed as percentage of
GDP, I think.

And that's before you allow for the fact that a large proportion of
the public can't afford healthcare at all (so aren't spending anything).

Reference?

Again, there are many reports bemoaning the situation.

I've had no issues with medical insurance companies at all. What is
your personal experience of them?

Too many to list. But includes absolute bans on certain courses of
treatment, bans on treatment for some pre-existing conditions, delays in
getting approval for treatment etc.

Have you tried quibbling with an American insurance company? I've
done both, and the NHS is easier every time.

Have you tried claiming from a UK insurer?

Yes. And they eventually paid, although bizarrely the consultant they
were paying me to see recommended that I would get better treatment
through the NHS than through the "ingrowing toenail motel" that was the
private sector's offering. Having found an NHS consultant (who happened
to work in a different town) he was also of the view that treatment
would be better delivered in his NHS hospital than anything he could
offer wearing his different hat in the private system.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8b02@qaanaaq, at 00:13:06 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

That's more a symptom of a bad dentist.
It takes a great deal of time to do a root canal treatment
properly. This should not be governed by time and cost but by
doing a proper job.
Like I said, if the treatment isn't done properly, that's a bad dentist.
So the choices are reduced to not doing the work at all or doing it
at a loss.
At less of a profit.

I suppose one could describe a loss as "less of a profit" That's
probably how Mr Blair's cronies would put it.

I doubt that there many dentists operating at a loss, that is dentists
who are unable to pay themselves a salary and pay the operating loss of
their business from their savings.

This is the precise reason why many dentists have packed in doing
NHS work rather than not doing a proper job.
I agree that a lot have packed it in.

Hmm.... I wonder why...

Unrealistically high expectations.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8be1@qaanaaq, at 00:16:49 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

How on earth could a trade association deal with such a thing?
By negotiating with the "management" - the people setting the rates
for the job.

OMG!! Collective bargaining now.

Better than divide and conquer, and each dentist having his own meeting
with the Secretary of State.

Because they have a pride in their work.

ROTFLMAO!!!

That probably says more about you, than others.

It isn't reasonable for the patients who are paying full price to
subsidise those who are not.
I suspect the dentists secretly believe that the mugs who are paying
to go private are paying a "voluntary subsidy" to the others.

In your dreams.....

It's a common attitude. I don't need to dream it.

And bad dentists the first.
Which is why one should clear of NHS dentists.
Of bad ones, yes.

Well..... th good ones sure as hell aren't doing NHS work

You've clearly failed to identify any. Must try harder.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at
22:39:12 on Sat, 21 Jun 2008, John Rumm
remarked:

He said he could just about do a filling in that time, but only by
drilling directly after injecting analgesic, and skipping most of the
thermal insulation and nerve protecting layers of the filling.
Basically clean out the decay, and fill directly, with little time to
tool a decent surface on the filling. The result would be a filling
that would last at most five years, and would transmit even slight
temperature changes to the owner of the tooth quickly and painfully.

I've been receiving mainly NHS dentistry for 50 years without those dire
consequences.

Take the money and bodge it?
Decline that patient?
Do the job well enough and make a loss?
Most do the second (ie they decline all NHS patients).

Indeed, which means the NHS is failing to provide any service at all in
most cases.

It can be hard to find, but I've never failed to yet.

A conscientious one will do the third.

Perhaps, but you can only do that as an exception rather than a general
rule.

Even NHS patients include quick-and-easy alongside the difficult ones.
The there are the fees they get for checkups, as well as those for
treatment.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 01:12:57 on
Sun, 22 Jun 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
That's more a symptom of a bad dentist.

It takes a great deal of time to do a root canal treatment properly.
This should not be governed by time and cost but by doing a proper
job.
Like I said, if the treatment isn't done properly, that's a bad
dentist.

And if it is, under the NHS, its a very *poor* one. (financially)

It's all about expectations. One of my local NHS dentists (not the one I
use) seems to employ mainly newly qualified dentists from Eastern
Europe. I have not heard complaints about their work from people using
them.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8c5f@qaanaaq, at 00:18:55 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
If they stick to the Porsche and 5-bed executive house lifestyle
that dentists were accustomed to in the 70's, viability is certainly
an issue.

Please explain to me why a dentist should take a reduction in lifestyle
because the NHS is unable to run its affairs properly.

Because his expectations were too high. I don't know what it was that
made 70's dentists so well off, but long term it was not a good
strategy.
--
Roland Perry

In message op.uc4cztq00v1caa@thedell, at 23:05:43 on Sat, 21 Jun 2008,
Brian L Johnson remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:

In message op.uc3y5tjn0v1caa@thedell, at 18:06:55 on Sat, 21 Jun
2008, Brian L Johnson remarked:
My lunchtime activities were restricted to The Printing Club.

We had a printing club too, and I was member. We used to print school
magazines, programmes for concerts, and lots of posters. Everything
set in lead (or wood for the bigger stuff).

Oh, the old grey cells are fading... what was the name of that press?

The machines, rather than the "brand" for in-house production?

The little hand ones were usually made by Elana or someone, but the
big treadle-powered ones (we didn't have the electric motor
attachment) were called... sigh No. It's gone.

I don't remember.

But I vividly remember pedalling like crazy

Yes, that's the sort of thing.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 22:19:40
on Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Bob Eager remarked:

what was the name of that press?

Adana. We had one at school....

Weren't they the smaller, almost table-top ones. At school we had a
professional floor-standing press.

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 22:45:16 on Sat,
21 Jun 2008, Matthew Woodcraft
remarked:
The majority of people have a fixed income, in the sense that their
salary is the same however many hours they work. Only the self employed,
or those who own companies (which amounts to the same) have the luxury
of being able to make a real tradeoff between time and earning
potential.

Lots of people do paid overtime, and a fair number of people have the
option to take unpaid leave.

Fewer than you think. Especially when it comes to day to day decisions
by the workers "if I stay here another half hour I'll earn enough extra
to courier my mum's birthday present rather than queuing at the Post
Office on Saturday morning".
--
Roland Perry

In message op.uc4eakmlpmo3dt@lucy, at 23:33:46 on Sat, 21 Jun 2008,
Duncan Wood remarked:
Actually most of the people I've worked worked with in permanent
employment over the years have had some kind of overtime renumeration.

My experience is totally the reverse.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8de9@qaanaaq, at 00:25:29 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
There are others whose income is based on achievement of certain MBOs.

That must be millions of people then.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8e78@qaanaaq, at 00:27:52 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
So realise your passport needs renewing before it's too late, and
post it! Also, London may not be your nearest office. Mine is
probably still the Peterborough one, only an hour away.

Sorry. That doesn't work if the passport is needed for a trip
somewhere each week.

If you are so disorganised that you have a trip to do and didn't realise
your passport had expired...

I've never had a reason to go to Peterborough.

I worked there for several years. And still travel though on the train
from time to time.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8ed6@qaanaaq, at 00:29:26 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
Meantime, I can spend my time doing something more gainful.

Like checking what other documentation is about to expire without you
having realised?
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8fba@qaanaaq, at 00:33:14 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

How long is the queue normally?

On one occasion, over 30 mins in the rain.

I can see that might be off-putting. Did Jeeves have the day off?

So "dealing with the problem" of defective goods involves getting
the customer to pay for exotic courier services??

There's nothing exotic about having some guy in a van showing up to
collect, any more than it is for them to deliver.

But it's cash-expensive, and the defective supplier should be paying,
not the customer.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485d8fff@qaanaaq, at 00:34:23 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
Some people used "carbon copy" check-books in order to keep a copy
(rather than just having a counterfoil). I expect those cost more.

Did they write with quill pens?

Of course not. This xenophobia is most unbecoming you know.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485c35fe@qaanaaq, at 23:58:06 on Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

If it's the best place to buy a particular thing, then the pain is a
necessary element.

Fine, but then don't complain about the pain.

I have no complaints, as long as people stick to what they promise.
There's no compulsion to say you'll ship within (say) 2 working days, if
in fact you only ship once a week.

... and like in all marketplaces there is the good and the bad. If
you want to play then you take the rough with the smooth.

Of course, but it's not as universally rough as you seem to like to
think.

It's an unregulated E Commerce organisation. That's all.
It's regulated in many ways, although lots of folk don't realise it.
All the more foolish for not understanding the rules of the game.
So you admit it's regulated, then?

largely self regulated, which is tantamount to no regulation.

Still completely wrong.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 23:15:19 on
Fri, 20 Jun 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
eBay's also very good for finding "obsolete" spares, something I
would have thought you would appreciate (in both sense of the word).
There are people selling stuff that I've never seen in any outlet,
either online or offline.

It WAS, Roland It isn't now. That's the problem.

Because you have to go through all the Paypal rigmarole to sell.

So you are saying it's harder to find things now?
--
Roland Perry

In message 485c393a@qaanaaq, at 00:11:54 on Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
On 2008-06-20 22:56:21 +0100, Roland Perry said:
But we are dealing with a clueless organisation, or they wouldn't
have lost the money (misallocated it) in the first place.

Of course.

They have no incentive to try to work it pout unless you can bash
them over the head with something concrete like a cheque stub or bank
statement.

A cheque stub has zero value. I can write a cheque and it's stub (I
can just about remember how) and drop the cheque in the shredder. It
is not a proof of payment or of allocation of funds.

Although people do seem to believe that a cheque stub in an apparently
consistent sequence does shift the burden of proof back onto them

I am certainly not going to provide a copy of bank statements to local
authority bureaucrats. It isn't their business how I spend my money.

Wrong bee in your bonnet. You show them (not give them) an extract that
demonstrates when the cheque cleared. That means the burden of proof is
back in their court, and that the cheque did exist, and was not lost in
transit.

As far as I'm concerned, they can do what they like and can make
representations for the money. Should they wish to do that through
the courts they can do so.
That'll take a lot of your precious time.

Not really. I would simply pickup the phone, call my bank manager
and ask him to write a letter confirming payments made to the local
authority for the time in question.

You still have a bank manger. I'm truly impressed. A letter like that
might impress the court, or they might just dismiss it as hearsay.

The exposure of local government incompetence is a worthwhile
contribution to the community.

I can agree 100% with that.
--
Roland Perry

In message 485c395f@qaanaaq, at 00:12:31 on Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
So just like an electronic car boot sale.......

If you are buying from individuals, a little like it; but a much better
(although not guaranteed) chance to get your money back from completely
non-performing sellers.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:


Why does a dentist deserve a Merc if a road sweeper doesn't?

Very good question.

Because if you got paid the same for being road sweeper, with no
worries, no comeback and no 7 year training course to PAY BACK, no one
would BE a dentist.

Another twist is the reason you pay a bank manager a LOT of money to BE
a bank manager. Because he has a LOT more to lose if he starts messing
around with other peoples money, and less reason to have to, than if he
is a road sweeper.


When you pay a professional person a professional fee, it reflects the
enormous amount of training they (should) have had, and it reflects the
care they are expected to display towards your professional problem,and
it reflects the insurance they have to pay against getting it badly wrong.

You are in fact endorsing a point of view that says that they are, and
should be, somewhat more diligent and better trained and insured than
you might expect a road sweeper to be.

Its all part of the fallacy of equality. That insists that someones
actual worth, as against some numenous human worth, is the same as
anyone elses, but also insists that their actual job, must be as
demanding as their ability to do it.

The sort of silly soschlist POV that inisits that anyone cold be a Nobel
prize winning mathematician, or a brain surgeon, or an airline pilot, no
matter what they are or how disabled, as long as a proper policy of
equal opportunity were to be enforced by the State.

You have to be pretty stupid to believe that: Sadly, it seems, enough
people actually are.

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:44:19 UTC, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 22:19:40
on Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Bob Eager remarked:

what was the name of that press?

Adana. We had one at school....

Weren't they the smaller, almost table-top ones. At school we had a
professional floor-standing press.

Yes, this was an 8 x 5 I think.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

Roland Perry wrote:
In message 485d8c5f@qaanaaq, at 00:18:55 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:
If they stick to the Porsche and 5-bed executive house lifestyle
that dentists were accustomed to in the 70's, viability is certainly
an issue.

Please explain to me why a dentist should take a reduction in
lifestyle because the NHS is unable to run its affairs properly.

Because his expectations were too high. I don't know what it was that
made 70's dentists so well off, but long term it was not a good strategy.

Their expectations are obviously not too high since they seem to be able
to reach those expected levels of remuneration by the simple expedient
of shunning NHS work and associated paperwork, and taking only private
patients.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 2008-06-22 15:14:28 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485d8aa0@qaanaaq, at 00:11:28 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

It all depends what hourly rate the dentist needs to earn where he lives.
That would only set the bare minimum.
Minimum what?
Remuneration.
But for what lifestyle?

For the one that the market will support.

Perhaps the market (for dentistry) will only support an average
lifestyle, and the porsche-wannabes are now in the wrong profession.

Seemingly not. Certainly my dentist, others in his practice and
colleagues in other practices are filling their appointments at the
quite reasonable prices that they charge. They don't consider that
they are overcharging for what they do, and clearly their patients
don't either.




I wouldn't mind if people in London and the southeast had
significantly higher prescription charges and dental fees, to reflect
the higher delivery costs.

We already do. £7 for a prescription item is already £7 more than the
socialist promise of the 1940s. Some brave new world.......

Wrong answer. Would you pay £12 in the southeast, to reflect the higher
cost of premises for the retail pharmacists?

There is no reason to have retail pharmacists. That can be done on
line as well.


With only 10% of people paying for prescriptions, I do wonder why they
bother; so it must be to establish some sort of "benchmark" for people
who don't pay to know how much better off they are. To that end I'd be
very happy for NHS patients to be given a dummy bill that says roughly
how much their treatment cost, so maybe they'd be a little bit more
grateful.

Oh my God... Did you write the script for their radio advertising?
What is all this "being grateful" all about? People are paying
through the nose for this third rate service. Why should they be
grateful for it?



And in the context of prescriptions not waste the ones that do cost
large sums of money.

The PCT prescribing committees do a pretty good job of short changing
patients with regard to drugs and supplies.



Time in hospital can be counted in days, but there's no fee.

There's a huge fee, taken in tax, but you don't realise it.

There's an insurance premium paid to the government. What you don't get
is a dummy bill that says:

Heart bypass operation: £15,000
Three weeks in hospital: £21,000
Medication for the next three months: £3,000

So you know what payback you've had.

It's all very well people saying things like "that $WASTEDMONEY could
have paid for 10 hip replacements" when the public has no idea how much
a hip replacement actually costs.

There is some value in that notion. The private sector has all of this
transparently. The procedure figures are well documented.
However, doing it in the NHS may not achieve all that much in that it
is not going to affect behaviour.





But I agree that filling in an insurance claim form for every £50, 7
minute, GP appointment is a really good way to waste time and money.

I presume that you have never filled in a healthcare claim form or
initiated a claim.

I've done it the USA many times. Usually you have to do it before
they'll treat you.

Not here. Very simple.



All that I have to do is to pick up the phone, call the insurer and
give a description of the ailment. 30 seconds and there is approval
for three months. Done.

I've been sat in a UK private hospital with everything "arranged", and
then suddenly the admin people say "sorry we've not received the
go-ahead for some reason - do you want to give us your credit card
number, or to come back when we've clarified this with your insurer".

That is your fault, quite frankly. You should have checked the
details of the procedure and the facility in exactly the same way as
when selecting other goods and services. Even with that, it's
perfectly possible to call the insurer and they will issue the
authorisation immediately




But they can break even as long as they don't have Mercs?
That's the sort of thing, yes. And as you agreed in your reply, having
the latest Merc when you can't afford it is very much a
self-inflicted injury.
Circular argument. Why shouldn't it be possible for a dentist to
afford a Merc if they want one?
Or a road sweeper. (Own a Merc, not a dentist own a road sweeper!)

Huh?

Why does a dentist deserve a Merc if a road sweeper doesn't?

Because his customers are willing to pay the amount of money that will
allow him to have a Merc. The road sweeper's customers are not.

During the communist era in Romania, there was social engineering along
these lines. A person could own one major thing - typically a car or
an apartment but not both. The logic ran that if they did they must
be on the fiddle.

However, as soon as it became possible for the people to string up the
perpetrator of this, they did. It seems that this fluffy or not so
fluffy socialism isn't very popular.




The Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as it costs to run the NHS.

Citation?

It's a fairly well known statisitc, usually expressed as percentage of
GDP, I think.

Mmm....


And that's before you allow for the fact that a large proportion of
the public can't afford healthcare at all (so aren't spending anything).

Reference?

Again, there are many reports bemoaning the situation.

Mmm...



I've had no issues with medical insurance companies at all. What is
your personal experience of them?

Too many to list. But includes absolute bans on certain courses of
treatment, bans on treatment for some pre-existing conditions, delays
in getting approval for treatment etc.

This depends on the insurer and on the policy.



Have you tried quibbling with an American insurance company? I've done
both, and the NHS is easier every time.

Have you tried claiming from a UK insurer?

Yes. And they eventually paid, although bizarrely the consultant they
were paying me to see recommended that I would get better treatment
through the NHS than through the "ingrowing toenail motel" that was the
private sector's offering. Having found an NHS consultant (who happened
to work in a different town) he was also of the view that treatment
would be better delivered in his NHS hospital than anything he could
offer wearing his different hat in the private system.

There are consultants like that. They ought to decide where they
really want to work.

On 2008-06-22 15:27:31 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485d8b02@qaanaaq, at 00:13:06 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

That's more a symptom of a bad dentist.
It takes a great deal of time to do a root canal treatment properly.
This should not be governed by time and cost but by doing a proper job.
Like I said, if the treatment isn't done properly, that's a bad dentist.
So the choices are reduced to not doing the work at all or doing it at a loss.
At less of a profit.

I suppose one could describe a loss as "less of a profit" That's
probably how Mr Blair's cronies would put it.

I doubt that there many dentists operating at a loss, that is dentists
who are unable to pay themselves a salary and pay the operating loss of
their business from their savings.

Why on earthwould anybody want to do that?



This is the precise reason why many dentists have packed in doing NHS
work rather than not doing a proper job.
I agree that a lot have packed it in.

Hmm.... I wonder why...

Unrealistically high expectations.

Unrealistically low expectations from civil servants who are long
overdue for the sack.

On 2008-06-22 15:30:31 +0100, Roland Perry said:

In message 485d8be1@qaanaaq, at 00:16:49 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

How on earth could a trade association deal with such a thing?
By negotiating with the "management" - the people setting the rates
for the job.

OMG!! Collective bargaining now.

Better than divide and conquer, and each dentist having his own meeting
with the Secretary of State.

An even better solution is for dentists individually to decide that
they don't want to do business with the state. That's actually what's
happening.



Because they have a pride in their work.

ROTFLMAO!!!

That probably says more about you, than others.

Having pride in one's work is laudable. Working at a loss is ridiculous.




It isn't reasonable for the patients who are paying full price to
subsidise those who are not.
I suspect the dentists secretly believe that the mugs who are paying
to go private are paying a "voluntary subsidy" to the others.

In your dreams.....

It's a common attitude. I don't need to dream it.

And bad dentists the first.
Which is why one should clear of NHS dentists.
Of bad ones, yes.

Well..... th good ones sure as hell aren't doing NHS work

You've clearly failed to identify any. Must try harder.

No need. Why would I look for 3rd rate treatment that is hard to get,
when I can get first rate treatment when I want it?