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Speaker 1: Heals always been a portfolio that MPs never really want

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Speaker 1: a bar of. You never win. You've got endless fights

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Speaker 1: with the unions. You've got people waiting for surgery, hard

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Speaker 1: to keep up with technology, and it's very personal. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you don't get the care that you need, it's

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Speaker 1: literally life and death stuff. So if these numbers Simeon

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Speaker 1: Brown's putting out it to be believed, and I've got

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Speaker 1: no reason to doubt them, then he should be congratulated.

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Speaker 1: Cancer wait times, immunizations, elective surgeries, ED numbers are heading

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Speaker 1: in the right direction, but by no means job finished,

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Speaker 1: and some of the movements only a few percent, and

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Speaker 1: it's quarter on quarter comparisons. But for a government the

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Speaker 1: media would have you believe is traditionally stingy and ineffective

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Speaker 1: in health, at least we have some measurable, measurable results

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Speaker 1: to compare and they're not terrible. Labour will come out

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Speaker 1: today and hate this. They say, grandma's hip operation is

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Speaker 1: being farmed out to the private sector. And you know

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Speaker 1: what Grandma will say, I don't care. I've got a

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Speaker 1: new hip. This is all short term stuff, though. The

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Speaker 1: bigger question is how we plan to pay for this

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Speaker 1: expensive system in twenty years time, when the population problem

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Speaker 1: kicks in. Treasury Ransom numbers on this. They looked at

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Speaker 1: health spending on pensioners as a share of the overall

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Speaker 1: health budget nineteen fifty one twenty nine percent. Today it's

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Speaker 1: forty percent, and by twenty fifty one sixty three percent,

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Speaker 1: So two thirds of the health budget will be spent

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Speaker 1: on over sixty fives and fewer workers to pay for it.

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Speaker 1: The problem with a decent public health system is that

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Speaker 1: people live longer as a result. It's a vicious cycle.

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Speaker 1: Of course, nobody wants Grandma to die, but if Simeon

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Speaker 1: Brown keeps this up, we'll be bankrupt before she carks it.

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Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talk Set B from five am weekdays, or

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