Boris Johnson said patients should have to pay to use the NHS so they will 'value' it more
- Boris Johnson called for patients to be charged to use the NHS in order to prevent free care being "abused" by people who can afford to pay, in a column unearthed by Business Insider.
- The prime minister wrote in 1995 that free healthcare should be restricted to "the genuinely sick and for the elderly."
- He added that "if people have to pay for [NHS services] they will value them more."
- Johnson has denied that the future of the NHS will be at risk under his government.
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Boris Johnson called for patients to be charged to use the National Health Service, with free care maintained only for "the genuinely sick and for the elderly," in a column unearthed by Business Insider.
The prime minister called for the extension of charges for services including ambulance journeys, in order to prevent free healthcare being "abused" by those who can afford it.
"If NHS services continue to be free in this way, they will continue to be abused, like any free service," he wrote in the Spectator Magazine in 1995.
"If people have to pay for them, they will value them more."
He added that those who say "the future the NHS should be for those who are genuinely sick, and for the elderly," are "bang on the nail."
Writing about his own experience of calling for an ambulance for one of his children, who then turned out not to be seriously ill, he asked: "Why should I not be charged, say, £50 for that inglorious episode, a fraction of its real cost?"
Johnson added that "it seems reasonable that the middle classes should be required to stump up for non-essential services they can well afford."
Johnson claimed that the only reason charges hadn't been introduced by the then Conservative government was because of political "cowardice."
"I will not be charged for the ambulance because politicians dare not take away from the middle classes the benefits they have accrued under the welfare state," he wrote.
"For the same reason, they will not take away all the other instruments of universal provision such as child benefit, disability allowance, and the rest. It is greed on our part and cowardice on theirs."
Footage uncovered this week by the blog Red Roar showed Johnson calling for the break-up of the "monopolistic" NHS.
"I think it is all very well to treat the NHS as a religion, but it is legitimate for some of us to point out that insofar as it is a religion it is letting down its adherents very, very badly," he told the House of Commons in 2002.
The Conservative Party was contacted for comment.
Trump denies wanting NHS 'on a silver platter'
The prime minister has denied any intention to include the NHS in trade talks.
However, leaked minutes of meetings between US and UK officials, obtained by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, suggest that US officials are keen to include the issue in talks.
The US' own negotiating objectives also confirm plans to secure full access for US healthcare companies to the UK markets.
However, Trump on Tuesday denied any such plans, telling a press conference in London that he wanted "nothing to do with" the NHS.
"If you handed it to us on a silver platter, we'd want nothing to do with it," the President said.
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