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By Weasel, October 27, 2008 11:13 am

I am over the moon this morning to read that Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, is expected to declare that patients are able to pay for private treatment alongside NHS treatment without being penalised and having funding withdrawn from them. This policy didn't exist in previous years when I've paid out of pocket for things my trust would not fund/was slow to fund, wasn't being enacted locally when we went private to pay for some of Ezekiel's treatment and I was absolutely shocked to discover that any trusts were indulging in it at all.

A patient and their family being able to pay for one aspect of their treatment does not mean that they can afford to pay for everything and it makes a mockery of the nhs to penalise them for doing so.

I know some doctors have made arguments that explicitly allowing patients to purchase drugs and treatment that the nhs doesn't fund will be a slippery slope towards a two-tier NHS, but withdrawing treatment from those who need it is not the appropriate way to fignt this. If it happens, we need to fight it off case by case and trust by trust instead.

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By Weasel, October 23, 2008 12:59 pm

Reports of voting machines selecting the wrong candidate when people come in and press their buttons, attempts to have large numbers of new voters stricken from the voting rolls, some heavily spurious half truths being thrown at the ACORN voter registration drives and the use of the flawed Social Security 'no match' system to put peoples right to vote in jeopardy ... it must be the final days of a republican election campaign!

Cedar over at Taking up too much Space has a few interesting videos on this one - including some rather nice analysis from MSNBC on the current situation.

In more amusing and less political news, last night I was introduced to the delightful music of Tim Minchin and I think I'm in love .