PRAXIS

This week, the UK government approved the use of 14 private firms to work within the NHS, these include BUPA, AXA and other US health care companies (announced by the Labour health minister Ivan Lewis). This represents a further step towards privatisation of the UK health services and transformation from a public service to a non-tax funded and profit-based system.
We in the UK should all be worried by such a move, because we are moving closer to a US model for health care, paid for as an 'extra' by private individuals through insurance. 
Privatisation of health care raises many worrying issues, one recently highlighted being the plight of minors who can't pay their own health fees (a boy in the US recently died from a tooth abcess as there was no dentist cover for him).
Also, we have the question of what exactly is being done with UK taxes if public services are dependent on profit. We can imagine the future of the UK like the US, being heavily taxed but with revenues diverted to war and sundry projects instead of funding basic domestic services like health.
Of course, the privatisation of public services is central to Neo-conservativism, as practiced by the Bush/Blair/Brown administrations, their aim is to abolish (or delegate to 3rd parties) services like health, education etc. puting the onus for public services on market forces whilst channeling the nation's taxes into a cocktail of military supremacy, war, spread of global capitalism (under the label of  'democracy'), space technology and other prestige projects. 
The deconstruction of public services and social equity across society is also part of the Neo-liberal agenda. The political-business elites are moving to abolish state support systems (like university funding/ grants) thereby limiting social mobility - this is to maintain the traditional poor-rich class structure and a pool of (low-aspiring) workers to service the capitalist economy.
Public services are also under scrutiny by governments as potential new markets for business (in the wake of industrial decline in the West). Business and government are increasingly examining models to derive surplus profit through industries like health insurance and indirectly through business contracts to run hospitals, schools etc. 
We should be wary and not complacent of the adverse effects resulting from profit-based public services, not to mention the loss in ethical and social accountability resulting from the transfer of these services to the boardroom.
The wider privatisation agenda is commented on by Ruth and Glenn Rikowski (see Ruth Rikowski's commentary on the 'Global Agreement of Trades in Services' and Glenn's commentary on the commodification of education).

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