Good Lord. It's _ages_ since I ran a poll.

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1566823]

Comments

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

But the addendum to my answer is that services would be funded to such an extent that it wouldn't be a problem, because I'd tax the rich bastards to pay for them...

[andrewducker]

You'll have to forgive my scepticism over how feasible that is. No matter how much money you throw at health it's always possible to spend more, which means that you need to allocate resources.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

There is always going to be better services in areas that contain more people and this is exactly how it should be. What else there should be is a system for referals to these more specialised hospitals and sufficient expertise in all others to cope with people until they can be referred.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

The phrase "postcode lottery" is a wonderful piece of spin, but can anyone really justify allocating health resources the same way in Glasgow (where the biggest problems are heart disease and cancer induced by poor diet and smoking) as in Cambridgeshire (healthier lifestyles, but high incidence of mental health problems)?

[andrewducker]

You clearly need specialists in proportion to the problems that are in any particular area. But the problems of differentiation are more frequently where a particular treatment isn't offered in one area despite, but is in others, for no particularly good reason.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

That doesn't strike me as different levels of service but rather the same level of service provided in different ways. But then you could drive a bus through the wording of the poll (which is, of course, the point).

[andrewducker]

Yeah, the last thing I was going to do is try and nail it down, because everyone has their own ideas about how this stuff should work. Many people don't seem to realise that there is a tension between local control and national standards, and that you can't have 100% of both - you need to have compromise and pressure from both directions to avoid things sliding too far either way.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Passport health lottery, surely?

Option 4

[recycled-sales.livejournal.com]

When I rule the world I'll no doubt either be so bound by bureaucracy that I can't implement any policies, or be so jaded at the world that I do my best to help myself and my own in the short time I have access to the resources of government.

Or Option 5 (which is really the one I prefer)

When I rule the world my first act will be the instigation of global thermonuclear war, in concert with a giant publicity campaign that makes it very clear I started it. In that way I shall become the man who destroyed the world and shall gain infamy over all others.

Re: Option 4

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Or then again, you might become revered as the person who was responsible for reducing the world's population and industrial technology enough to bring them into line with the environment's carrying-capacity, thus becoming a Saviour of Humanity by destroying the culture of this era before it could cause even greater calamity.

[simont]

If I thought somebody had triggered global thermonuclear war with the aim of going down in history as infamously evil, I could see the argument for deliberately making an effort to have them portrayed this way, on the grounds that it'd be the only remaining way to annoy them!

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Some people are forthrightly Evil, and some (I'm a wannabe at this) are sneakily Evil. But then, I enormously admire Teresa Nielsen Hayden's "Oh, six hills of zucchini per person should be adequate" advice to an obnoxious commune-residence gardener. (For the unaware: one hill -- of maybe three plants -- of them is likely to produce a plethora for a large family.)

[nmg.livejournal.com]

My subjects will construct vast palaces and monuments in My honour, and any signs of ill health shall be treated as moral weakness and punished accordingly.

Issues of low morale will be addressed by regular beatings.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

My ingenious solution is as follows:
I have no intention of being put in a position where I rule the world.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

My ingenious solution is as follows:
I have no intention of being put in a position where I rule the world.

[andrewducker]

A very elegant solution. I feel much the same way :->

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

When I rule the world I will set up a commission to investigate the matter.

[zz]

I like nuclear war and palaces ideas.

then again, i've just watched the 3rd mummy film, so anything less than having immortality, shapeshifting, and global terror is... meh.

[zz]

priorities will be set at a local level by local people

as in "which of us do we sacrifice to appease svenny the terrible?"

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

If you set priorities at a local level, surely you end up with a situation where each local place believes they're getting better healthcare than all the other places, even if they actually aren't? Otherwise they'd have organised it like the other places.

[andrewducker]

Only if they're actually involved in the decision making. I'm not going to be running the local hospital myself, so I suspect I'll be complaining that it's run worse than some other hospital in the next county.