UK, SOCIALISM, MEDICAL

[Slogger]

(Fox ticker, Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008:)

General Practitioners in Britain are paid cash bonuses for not sending patients to the hospital.  UK’s Daily Mail reports.

Doctors stand to earn thousands of pounds more under the initiative, raising fears they may put their own financial gain above their patients’ needs.

Under UK’s National Health Plan, money is lost if more people are directed to have surgery than allowed for under the Health Authority target.

Chairman of British Medical Association’s GP Committee calls the practice “morally dubious, ethically disturbing and quite wrong.” 

British PM Gordon Brown says, “We do not live by Markets alone.”  Brown says that while his Labour Party is pro-business and pro-markets, he believes the Markets work best when guided by “an ethic of fairness.”  Brown’s Treasury Secretary Alistair Darling says the British Government will not be cutting back on spending to deal with the Financial Crisis but will instead shift spending priorities to areas that will stimulate the economy.