David Cameron is just trying to find a way to do it deceitfully by stealth.

Dont trust the Tories with our National Health Service because rain or shine they will try and find a way to fool us and get what they want.

Just take a look at the Financial Supporters of The Conservative Party and you will realise what I am saying.

Some very interesting and valuable comments here...but hang on if, by insinuation, the coalition government is intending to 'privatise' our NHS (which I have subscribed to for 50 years) is there an issue here for compensation of these monies by refund, or credit. To date I'm certain, luckily, that I have been a net contributor financially, as many of us have, although I'm sure I will need the NHS sometime, but if the government is putting a price on this precious service, will I be allowed to evaluate the organs in my body. How much for a pint of rare blood these days...I've been giving it free for half a century...anything else of value as a working part or bodily function asset???

As a LibDem party member, I think conference made it quite clear what we expect Clegg & Alexander to do now.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/20/liberal-democrats-health-...

The key is now reminding Clegg of his duty to do as conference says, and keep up the internal pressure.
I'll be more than happy to start today.

So, we have to pay the private providers more than we did when the service was nationalised. Haven't we been here before with the railways?

It is essential that these NHS reforms are halted and re-considered. These reforms threaten the major principles of the NHS - universal, comprehensive care free at the point of use- that the NHS white paper states it aims to achieve. The Bill opens up the NHS to competition and wider engagement of private providers. There will be opportunities for charging for some elements of NHS care and for profits for staff and shareholders from tax payers funding. We are at a time of major financial difficulties and, although always room for improvement, the NHS was at a time of high satisfatcion. There is no evidence that these reforms will save money or improve quality. The bill must include provisions that the Secretary of State for Health must ensure comprehensive health care in England free at the point of use, to ensure that commissioning consortiums provide comprehensive health care to all residents and they cannot charge for NHS services.

Having just reached 60 and looking forward to my HUGE pension (for how long?) I am horrified at the thought of what the Coalition are planning to do to our way of life. Having worked for all of my working life as an employer and employee I feel justified in expressing concern that the conributions I, personally, have made into the system can be so cavalierly used and abused. I support Barry West when he says we need a national campaign under the banner of Save our NHS NOW! and hopefully rid our country of these meddling, public school upstarts who have more money than sense and HUGE egoes to boot!

Re-read the Rachel Sylvester Times article again:

"ministers insist that the broad principles will be retained"

"David Cameron ... is now said to be coming round to the idea of making some 'clarifications' on the speed and scale of the proposals."

"a Tory Cabinet minister says: 'The Bill is not quite as scary as people have made it seem'"

None of this indicates that the major policy issues of "Any Willing Provider", removing the responsibility of the government to provide health care, of removing accountability in commissioning, none of these will be amended. If they are taken out of the Bill then the Bill will no longer exist. What is being suggested is a new campaign to convince the public that they want the Bill.

The review of the Bill at the end of last year was by Letwin and Alexander. Both signed it off. Both will be damaged if any substantial amendments are made to the Bill because it will appear that they did a bad job reviewing the Bill. The most damaged will be Alexander. In fact, why hasn't he been castigated so far? The LibDem spring conference says that they disagreed with substantial parts of the Bill he signed off, doesn't that show how out of touch he is with the LibDem grassroots?

Richard Blogger

You are always someone to listen to in this respect ... the LP, or rather the blairites, are guilty of opening the door or at least not shutting it. All of these changes follow from the 96 GATS treaty signed up to by the EU Commissioners, and every government since then have been privatising the lucrative public services by stealth... and without any public discussion or assent. Particularly alarming is the clause which prevents reversal if foreign providers have contracts. Hence, the involvement of so many US health providers and in other areas, the proposal for the Dutch to take over Royal Mail.

The dismantling of the PCTs and SHAs is already well underway and GP consortia are being set up, largely under the wing of McKinseys and other global management consultancies. Putting the NHS back together again requires a return to nationalisation proper.

It'll be fascinating to see how Cameron responds.
Im not a fan of this Coalition, but i suspect Cameron was unaware of the full implications of this bill.

I can't see how the Treasury signed off on this, given the estimated £3 billion in reorganisation costs.

My bet is a watering down of "any willing provider" and removal of placing the NHS under competition law.

Which will sort of bring us back to where we were before. So $3 billion wasted, countless management expertise in PCTS lost, widespread demoralisation, management time wasted on reorganisation rather than clinical priorities.

Even with a major u-turn, this will still register as a major cock-up!

We need to push MPs to vote against this bill at 3rd reading as tinkering with it to water down its proposals is not enough. KONP has been fighting privatisation and marketisation of the NHS since 2005 join us and write to yoru MP to tell him/her to vote aginst the bill at 3rd reading. We need all small party MPs and 48 LibDems to vote against it and it could be stopped in its tracks. We were going to have the 'new politics' but parts pf this bill have been implemented before it even reached parliament and Lansley and the DH are acting as if it has already been passed. Is this democratic? The consultation failed the first test of a consultation -it was about the 'how' not the 'what' of the bill. Did Lansley take any notice of the 6000 responses to this document? MPs should stand up against this assault on their authority and vote against it. What is the rush? The NHS does need to change to accommodate the aging population but it does not have to do that overnight.This Bill does not address this problem. Lansley's stated aims could be achieved without this massive re-organisation which is going to cost billions. The BMA SRM voted on 15.3.11 almost unanimously to ask Lansley to withdraw the Bill and he has ignored this and all the 27 other critical motions against this continuing to say that the medical profession are for his changes. They are not and neither are the people of England who understand what he is trying to do. Visit our website www.keepournhspublic.com,
Sign the 38 degrees petition andt hey can send a letter to your MP if you do ot want to write personally.
WDS Cochair of steering group of KONP

One of the aspects which I find surprising is that the Tories are proposing to place the standards and practice of the NHS under the ultimate authority of the EU and their courts.... ironic or could they really not know the implications of making our health service subject to EU competition laws?

The plot thickens hour by hour.

The coalition are showing themselves up for what they really are; totally inept and an absolute laughing stock both individually and collectively.

No need to bring on the clowns this lot are unbeatable and unbeleivable.

It seems very odd that the Government are making all these cuts on the NHS and our front line services whilst at the same time giving £45 million to the European Union.
Is it not time
we withdraw from the EU and be able with a responsible Government put back all this money into where it has been taken from and also get our country back on its feet.