AT the weekend the new Labour shadow health secretary, Andrew Burnham, delivered a treacherous stab in the back to the NHS with the announcement that he and the Labour opposition were prepared to work ‘constructively’ with the Tory coalition in the privatisation of the health service.
At the same time that thousands of young workers and students were occupying Westminster Bridge determined to fight the health and social care bill (due to go before the House of Lords today), Burnham was writing to Tory health minister, Andrew Lansley, offering cooperation with the government on plans to give GPs the lead role in commissioning health provision in return for them dropping the bill.
According to Burnham this would resolve ‘a dangerous stalemate’ on NHS reform and provide a ‘way ahead that everybody could unite behind’.
So what Burnham is proposing is that Lansley drop the health and social care bill, that looks set to get a rough ride in the Lords, in return for the full backing of the Labour opposition to introduce privatisation of the NHS through the back-door, without the need for legislation that is provoking an uprising amongst workers and youth.
According to Burnham there is no need for unpopular legislation – GP commissioning can be achieved under existing rules.
In short, he and Miliband are throwing a lifeline to the coalition and offering themselves up as partners – a three-party coalition to destroy the NHS.
One thing is certain, the issue of GP commissioning lies at the very centre of Lansley’s privatisation plans.
An example of what this means was provided last week, when it was revealed that a consortia of GPs based in York had been approaching patients they believed were in need of minor operations and informing them that while these couldn’t be carried out under the NHS, they could be provided by a private health company that was owned by the same consortia.
But, of course, this is just the beginning for the mass privatisation of the NHS to be led by these GP commissioning bodies – now known as Commissioning Care Groups (CCGs).
GPs will be forced into these CCGs, which will have control of 80% of the £80 billion NHS budget, and they will be ripe for taking over by the private commercial health companies.
The intention is to turn the NHS away from being a provider of health services into a mere commissioning body, buying in health care from private companies.
This is what Burnham and the Labour leadership are pledging to support and drive through against any opposition.
Today capitalism is in the worst crisis in its history and it has determined that it can no longer afford the ‘luxury’ of a health service paid for out of general taxation and free at the point of delivery.
In order to keep the bankrupt system afloat, capitalism must end the NHS and replace it with private medicine and the Labour leadership, as staunch believers and supporters of capitalism, are offering themselves up as willing partners in this attempt to prop up the banks at the expense of the NHS.
For the working class, the message from Burnham couldn’t be clearer, the reformists of the Labour party are not only incapable of defending the NHS and all the gains of the past, they are joining with the Tories to destroy these gains in the name of rescuing capitalism.
The only road to defend the NHS is the road not of reformism, but of revolution.
The demand must be for a general strike to bring down the coalition and replace it, not with the traitors of the Labour Party, but with a workers government.