Does Boris Johnson want to sell the NHS to Donald Trump?

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LABOUR has repeatedly claimed that Boris Johnson would sell the NHS to Donald Trump if he reaches No10.

Jeremy Corbyn insists he has proof Tory ministers and officials met with White House staff to discuss opening the health service up to US pharmaceutical firms.

The papers wielded by Jeremy Corbyn have been linked to a Russian fake news campaign

Mr Johnson has rubbished the claims – remaining adamant that the NHS would be firmly off the table in a trade deal with the US.

He said last week: “I can give you an absolute cast iron guarantee, this is a complete diversion, that the NHS under no circumstances will be on the table, up for sale.”

While today the President Trump said the US would not be interested in the NHS even it was served up “on a silver platter”.

He said: “I dont even know where that rumour came from.
“Even if you handed it to us on a silver platter,we want nothing to do with it.”

ON THE TABLE

But one of Labours main attack lines on the campaign trail has been that the PM will happily give the US total market access to the health service if he wins on December 12.

The party believes that a quote from the leaked dossier where it said that for the US everything is included unless something is specifically excluded is proof of this.

But this quote reflects a British assessment of what the US trade position would be in the talks.

When Mr Corbyn speaks in debate or rallies around the country, he leaves out what the full sentence actually says: The NCM [US] approach makes total market access the baseline assumption of the trade negotiations and requires countries to identify exclusions, not the other way around.

So basically this is saying the US goes into talks believing that everything is up for debate and then expects other nations to make clear what is off the table, in Britains case the NHS.

‘PATENT’ PROOF

Labour claims US pharma giants will run up the price of drugs and medicines in a post-Brexit deal with Trump.

Mr Corbyn attests the deal would cost the NHS up to 500m-a-week.

The party has also said that leaked documents of trade meetings show: The US and UK have already finished initial discussion on lengthening patents for medicines.

But in the United States pharma firms can extend their patents or license on drugs when the patent approval process has been delayed by officials.

US officials have argued for these extensions in Britain but the time frame would not be relevant because our patent approval process is quicker.

500M-A-WEEK

Labour has got the 500m-a-week figure from a report by Dr Andrew Hill, from the University of Liverpool.

Dr Hill, who co-wrote the report with academics from Harvard University, came up with the sum to show how much more the US pays for drugs than the UK.

During their research the team compared how much was spent on medicine per person in each nation.

As a result they hoped to crudely estimate how much it would cost the NHS if it spent exactly the same as the US on drugs per head.

In the report the authors make clear that their findings are not trying to estimate how much the NHS would actually spend as a result of a trade deal with the US.

Dr Hill told the BBC: It’s a guide to how much money could be involved but it’s difficult to predict how much money would be involved.”

‘BREAKING OPEN’

Mr Corbyn has claimed that British officials did not make clear that the NHS would be off the table in a UK-US trade deal.

The Labour boss said this: Surely you cant believe that British officials would demand the NHS be excluded? Apparently not.

“In fact, on behalf of the Conservative government, officials reassured their counterparts that ‘the US should expect the UK to be a liberalising influence’ and that together they could ‘fly the good flag for services liberalisation’.

“Thats a green light for breaking open Britains public services so corporations can profit from,” he added.

But actually the quote that Mr Corbyn has mentioned is from a different set of talks all together.

In this document there are no mentions of UK officials allowing the NHS to be opened up in the talks.

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