I can’t believe that you still want to compare costs in 1950 with costs in 2020 !

Do you pop down to Tesco with a ten bob note in your pocket to do the weekly shopping?

😆

🙂

Ernie the point is that health care costs are rising at double to treble the rate of growth in the UK economy.

Labour’s spending was unaffordable with £90bn a year budget deficit, it had to be addressed of the NHS and the country would have faced a true catastrophe. Tories promised £8bn pa by 2020 and are delivering £10bn. Labour promised only £2bn, that’s a rounding error

jambalaya – Member
Ernie the point is that health care costs are rising at double to treble the rate of growth in the UK economy.

Is that a problem – yes it is. Is it a good thing – yes it probably is.
Can the UK afford it? Depends what the priorities are.
Is there an alternative? Check the crystal on your hand for the colour change.

There are also many ways to fund it, from collecting exitsing taxes toother initiative. There are also some big changes in organisation needed to make sure it delivers the best it can for the money used.
Just quoting cost figures which do state a doubling in the 2000-2010 section (around the time a huge investment was made in new hospitals and PFI initiatives?) then ignoring that the projected 2010-2020 figures show nothing near a doubling of costs either in total or per person is madness. You have claimed doubling of costs which the UK has managed to absorb each decade until now, this is the first decade where costs are not doubling and you claim it’s unaffordable.

Ernie the point is that health care costs are rising at double to treble the rate of growth in the UK economy.

No this is much more the point :

Tories promised £8bn pa by 2020 and are delivering £10bn. Labour promised only £2bn, that’s a rounding error

and from the other thread

“Five MPs led by the Conservative Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the Commons health select committee, have written to the chancellor demanding the government abandon its “incorrect” claims of putting £10bn into the NHS annual budget by the end of this parliament and admit the severity of its financial shortage”

However, the MPs say that May’s £10bn claim cannot be justified. “The £10bn figure can only be reached by adding an extra year to the spending review period, changing the date from which the real terms increase is calculated and disregarding the total health budget,” they concluded.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/30/theresa-mays-claim-on-health-funding-not-true-say-mps
I’m sure you will agree if I put a proposal to you that was that shakey in your business world you would laugh me out the door. If not PP Gift is fine 🙂

Afaik, the NHS is very efficient, just underfunded.

I believe that too much money is squandered on the transport infrastructure, i.e, forcing people to use cars where it would be as easy to walk or cycle.

To encourage people back to walking, etc you’d have to start eliminating private cars from the city centre and work outwards.

The NHS should have a greater say in transport policy.

cut- an ageing population, obesity and related issues like diabetes and Im sure the NHS would be in better shape

Can the UK afford it? Depends what the priorities are.

The priorities don’t seem to be the physical and emotional welfare of those that can’t afford private healthcare. So I guess it’s a problem then.

Ernie the point is that health care costs are rising at double to treble the rate of growth in the UK economy.

The point has been illustrated to you repeatedly but you keep ignoring it and responding with a meaningless retort.

Give the NHS all hospital car park profits.
Take back all the land from the royal family and frack the buggery out of it. 😉
Turn Buckingham palace and other stately homes into hospitals/theme parks/hotels – offering the royal family zero hour contracts to work/live there. (peppercorn rents obvs.)

I’ve not read most of the thread, but to answer the OP, I fail to see why someone doesn’t just put National Insurance contributions up. I’d gladly pay more.
Also, I’m not knocking the service they provide but by god the NHS is a lumbering beast. I’m currently having some fairly simple treatment and everything has to go through about 3 people and 3 appointments every time. It seems nobody is allowed to make a decision, even through it’s fairly obvious to everyone involved.

The percentage of funding coming from tax and NI is alread at a high (>98%) PPwhile paying for services is <2%. It’s not rocket science. We have to start contributing more directly in charges. And why not? Nothing is more important is it?

What happens when you raise NI and who loses?

If people want to play at making points with graphs they should see how UK trends in funding/GDP compare internationally (oh, look there’s a trend) and ask themselves whether the spike was driven by the numerator or the denominator? Gosh, its 2009/10!!! Alternatively apply for a job at the Daily Wail as a columnist.

+1 for what PP says but if my dad is anything to go by the NHS doesn’t stand a chance against a tide of bored internet browsing self diagnosing pensioners

With 60%+ of the population being overweight or obese then we’re clearly not are we? We may be trying to, but it’s not effective…

Malthusian population crisis backed up by some sort of semi-extinction event should sort that out nicely. Hard to be overweight when you’re reliant on catching your own irradiated bunnies for food.

People have too much money. Are wedded to their cars. Can’t be arsed to walk to the shops to buy a pint of milk. Consume too much rubbish literally and figuratively. If you have a society and economy which is fundamentally about encouraging consumption to drive it, what you end up with is a bloated population.

We’ve been brainwashed into thinking everything is about buying ‘more stuff’ and endless unsustainable growth to drive share dividends to keep a small number of very rich people very rich.

Taxing sugary drinks more heavily isn’t going to change any of that.

We’ve been brainwashed into thinking everything is about buying ‘more stuff’ and endless unsustainable growth to drive share dividends to keep a small number of very rich people very rich.

Indeed.

erine’s chart is actually more meaningful

No, because if you measure funding against GDP you would conclude that reducing GDP improves the NHS.

The absolute value is the one that matters in terms of what the NHS can do – or even better the absolute value per person who has access to the service.

Once the effects of Brexit hit, you can be sure that we’ll look back on the NHS as it is now as the golden years. Enjoy it while it lasts.

We’ve been brainwashed into thinking everything is about buying ‘more stuff’

We haven’t been brainwashed – most of us quite like it, so we want to believe that.

The absolute value is the one that matters in terms of what the NHS can do – or even better the absolute value per person who has access to the service.

It depends if you are looking at the total spend or the affordability. The affordability is the key thing here. The increasing costs has been met by increasing wealth. Also Jamby’s helpful little table actually shows the increase in spending is slowing rather than doubling like he claims it says.

Afaik, the NHS is very efficient, just underfunded.

Efficiency depends very much on the chosen measure. By some measures the NHS is very efficient, by others it looks pretty poor. There are high excess (i.e. avoidable) deaths for one thing. And efficiency doesn’t equal overall capability.

There’s almost certainly a mix of inefficiency and underfunding. Pick one depending which side of the political spectrum you are on (which is why it will never get fixed, because only one ever gets looked at at a time).

It’s no good, I can’t concentrate on work this morning. Ernie’s charts have quite upset me. It’s a bloody outrage. Under these nasty Tories, health spending as a percentage of GDP is going to go back to the highs recorded (per-crisis) both those bloody Labour folk. If we can’t trust the Toires to protect us from Labour levels of spending, who can you trust? The Lib Dems???

It’s all ideology and privatisation don’t you know….a national disgrace. Where the address for the Daily Mail letters page?

Under these nasty Tories, health spending as a percentage of GDP is going to go back to the highs recorded (per-crisis) both those bloody Labour folk.

and yet they still feel the need to lie about how much they are funding and the tory lead committee called on the government to acknowledge the underfunding.

ernies’s charts show that the UK can afford the NHS, the point being funding needs increasing and management needs to be better. Long term medical outcomes should form the basis of the future of the NHS not political targets and teams there to bend the stats to the target.

Agreed so why all the bllx about the Tories? Ok, Hunt doesn’t Inspire confidence I do accept that.

NI should be like actual insurance, the British have shown that they are not responsible enough for proper socialised medicine. I want to see contributions go up based on age and lifestyle factors eg how morbidly obese you are or whether you smoke or drink too much.

how far back are you looking?
The stuff about the tories was their 10bn claim which was properly shot out of the water. Claiming to have given 10bn over a number of years to an organisation with a 116bn budget also shakes a few things up. It’s not actually that much money to make a huge difference but as the Brexit stuff showed, once a number reaches a certain size it’s assumed it’s near infinite. People are impressed but have no idea what difference it will actually make.

I want to see contributions go up based on age and lifestyle factors eg how morbidly obese you are or whether you smoke or drink too much.

How much is it going to cost to measure that then Tom? Fags and Booze already attract a very high tax rate so that is happening already. What about skydivers, paragliders or london cycle couriers? How about our very own WCA?

Anyway care to explain how the UK has failed to be responsible enough?

“Long term medical outcomes should form the basis of the future of the NHS not political targets and teams there to bend the stats to the target.”

Indeed, and that can’t happen while Politicians are running it.

…or maybe I mean while voters are running it.

Easy Mike, any sport that reduces public health burden is excempt.

I think we should then just cut tqx on booze and fags like the Russians, to kill as many idiots off as possible.

Tom_W1987 – Member
Easy Mike, any sport that reduces public health burden is excempt.

Cycling round the park; exempt. Cycling down steep, rough hills; not so much. Careful what you wish for.

which sports are they? Looks like it’s going to be a tough one to call, how much is a cruciate op? Whats the balance between exercise and injury and long term damage?
I thought you wanted to tax the unhealthy lifestyles of people but now you want to cut the tax?
Are you applying for Jeremy Hunt’s job?

Id be happy to pay insurance to cover the risk of DH.

Id be happy to pay insurance to cover the risk of DH.

What about road riding? Football seems fairly dangerous, Rugby certainly, plenty of nasty accidents with people out walking and injuries running. When does something outweigh it’s benefit and how are we measuring that?

how far back are you looking?

Not too far, its gets even scarier then. Heaven forbid that we should return to the levels of the mid 2000.

The stuff about the tories was their 10bn claim which was properly shot out of the water.

Indeed. No harm in pulling the Tories up for false claims. Happy with that.

Let the people who supply the cover (that we will all end up having) compete for ways to incentivise us- they will be the innovators not politicians. It already happens – in all places – in the life (yes life) insurance market for HIV positive people in SA. But that required good old private equity to fund that brilliant model. Not Zuma “Have a Shower”!

Our first born had a serious and rare condition that no doubt cost the NHS a lot of money to treat (in fact there was some uncertainty that the second lot of treatment would even be signed off). It was genetic, so we had to think carefully about having more kids. Long story short, we have 3 wonderful children and, although the first child still has some challenges, they are healthy and well.

I often wonder how different our life would be under a different health care system to the NHS and I will be eternally grateful for everything they’ve done for us over the years.

I often wonder how different our life would be under a different health care system to the NHS and I will be eternally grateful for everything they’ve done for us over the years.

My experience of the NHS has been awesome, too, but the majority view is it’s crap because it’s run & funded by Government which never allocates sufficient resources to it. (Many people say for malicious reasons!) That view has been unchanged throughout my lifetime. The only way to keep everyone happy is to take it out of Government hands, then everyone gets exactly the quality of service they want.

outofbreath – Member

erine’s chart is actually more meaningful

No, because…………..[/quote]

Really? Are you sure that it’s not more meaningful than a chart which shows no spending at all for the first ten years of the NHS, or that makes no distinction between costs in 1950 and costs in 2020?

Do you also go shopping with a ten bob note then?

Really? Are you sure that it’s not more meaningful than a chart which shows no spending at all for the first ten years of the NHS,

You’re being a little obtuse. Nobody’s saying it was zero, it’s just doesn’t show on the graph. It would be easy to produce the same graph on a different scale.

or that makes no distinction between costs in 1950 and costs in 2020?

You can factor that out/in yourself if you wish. (Although why would you, costs aren’t fictional items, they should be included.)

Comparing to income is mental. By that measure my car becomes twice as good if my salary halves!

The only way to keep everyone happy is to take it out of Government hands, then everyone gets exactly the quality of service they want

Do they? Surely cost then becomes an issue that the individual has to worry about rather than the government. My fear of a privately run health care system where you pay a premium based on risk is that, in our circumstance, the risks of having more kids would have been deemed too high by someone in an office with a spreadsheet and hence our premium would have been unaffordable. I know this is all pure speculation, but our health is not always completely in our control.

You’re being a little obtuse. Nobody’s saying it was zero, it’s just doesn’t show on the graph. It would be easy to produce the same graph on a different scale.

Have you not had a debate (sic) with Ernie before?

Dont worry most people understand scaling and if they dont

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/spending_chart_1940_2020UKb_16c1li111mcn_10t

here’s the data source for Jambas chart