How is the Centre for the New Europe funded? Does it receive money from private healthcare providers? Without this information, your words are worth less than Hamish Meldrum's and we should probably think twice before taking your advice to bin the principle of equitable healthcare for all.

Jack, Bury,

To compare cancer care to a restaurant meal is simply flippant – access to effective cancer treatment should not depend on ability to pay. Stephen Pollard himself sees co-payments as 'sparking a real revolution in the NHS', opening the door to 'part-private, part-public funding of healthcare '

Dr Martin Breach, Haydock, UK

Dr Breach, how is paying for extra changing the free at point of delivery system. If a drug is not available at the point of delivery then cost doen't come into it, rather like having the table d'hote menu and adding an extra sweet.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

The BMA is one organisation that is prepared to stand up and defend the principles of universal health care, free at the point of delivery. These are the principals that the vast majority of the British public support, not the callous self-interest of the loony liberationist right

Dr Martin Breach, Haydock, UK

"Isn't it odd how this group -- the abortionists trade union - Roger Pearse, Ipswich"

Yaaaaawn...

Homer, London,

Isn't it odd how this group -- the abortionists trade union -- is one that we increasingly associate with truly hateful attitudes to us all?

Roger Pearse, Ipswich,

If people being treated by the the NHS shdn't be allowed to pay for drugs prescription charges shd be dropped & ALL drugs be funded by the NHS. Otherwise those who pay are subsidising those who don't - hardly equitable! Meldrum should refuse to treat people who have had to pay towards prescriptions.

Donna Walker, Effingham, England

Perhaps doctors can have a new Hippocratic Oath which says :-

“ We will do our best to save all human life especially if you believe in socialist/communist principles, but if you want to spend your own very hard earned money on trying to save your own life, then we will adopt strict communist principles and you can die.”

This will only apply to the not so well of as people with large sums of money will pay and don’t care what this dictator says.

james, Brighton, uk

No, this is actually a very good thing. It is better for Unions to be intransigent in full view of the public. Unions have been seen as "mostly harmless" for too long. A couple of god Union-inflicted crises and the public will remember what they are really like.

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/USA

doctors are no more or no less than most professionals, but they behave as they are.
i think they should remember their roots and put a striped pole out-side their offices. and perhaps offer a hair-cut.

james, doncaster, uk