Suchergebnisse

In recent history, the politics of health has drifted inexorably towards a paradigm in which it is the responsibility of the state rather than of individuals to manage their health. What were once considered private health matters for individuals are now attributed with society‐wide importance. This has given rise to a strident 'therapeutic state' which pays obsessive interest in its citizens' eating, drinking, smoking, exercise and sexual habits. However, many of the therapeutic state's own recommendations are poorly evidenced and doctrinaire. The lack of accountability and adverse incentives which creeping state intrusiveness brings will ultimately disconnect the health system from the needs of citizens and treat their personal information with inexcusable carelessness.

Since 1979, modern Conservatism has been torn between a traditional regard for the nation state and a powerful, internationalising, global capitalism. Increasingly, radical free marketeers in the party reject the diffuse and patriotic political economy of big government. Instead, they prefer the consumption ethic of radical supply side reform and privatisation. However, in a country in which private healthcare is expanding, in which private schools and home education are booming, and in which for every one state policeman there are now at least two private security guards, how far will this process go? When a Labour government issues a green paper highlighting the scope for the greater use of private military companies and it accepts the commodification of public space through the use of road pricing, what room is left for Conservatives who believe that 'the people should be big and the state small'?

In 1948, the government nationalised more than 3,000 independent hospitals, homes and clinics to create a National Health Service that was supposed to deliver 'all medical, dental and nursing care'‐ free at the point of delivery. Demonstrating that the service failed to do this and instead substituted rational pricing signals with numerous forms of rationing, the authors examine the re‐emergence of a sizeable independent health and social care sector today and its implications for the future.

AbstractAcademic and government research regarding the affordability of household drinking water and sewer utility (water utility) costs have resulted in the development of several methodologies that have been tested at various geographic levels. A New Jersey study on potential household affordability stresses from water utility costs at or below the Census tract‐level estimates that approximately one‐fifth of all New Jersey households could face affordability stresses, assuming that they directly pay all water utility costs. The methodology is adapted from the Affordability Ratio method of Teodoro. The results show the potential for use of county‐level household essential expenditure estimates in areas with high‐density populations. They also show the value of the methodology as a basis for policy discussions regarding the severity and geographic distribution of affordability stresses, as the analysis clearly indicates that significant affordability stresses exist in many suburban municipalities and rural town centers, not just historic urban cities.