Today it is being reported that we all need to pay an extra £100 a month towards the cost of the NHS.
Is it worth it ? I am actually not convinced. £100 per month will get you a very nice private health insurance policy that will pay for the the nice stuff the NHS can not provide. The NHS could then continue its Acute core business.
Of course it is no where near that straightforward. As in essence your £100 private policy would have to start funding far more services. So very quickly your £100 per month becomes £200 per month.
Is my response exactly what the conservatives want? Let the public decide that they want privatisation for themselves ??
How much of that gets split between freeloaders who never pay a penny into the system and shareholders who take great delight in ramping up cost for a box of tissues.
No thanks.
But surely they are get a bazillion pound a week after Brexit?
Yes, I'd pay, but only on the basis that control of the NHS is taken away from Whitehall and into the responsibility of a commission.
All the short journey motor vehicle users, heavy smokers/drinkers that do less than two hours aerobic exercise per week... Please form an orderly, very long queue here.
These are the people that are crippling the NHS and lowering the age expectancy of the UK middle aged and upwards population. These are the people that should be subsidising the NHS.
Oh, not to mention the tax evading companies and individuals. 😉
Surely it wouldn't be £100 each - it would be a sliding scale based on ability to pay, just like any other tax.
I would pay.
The level of services that the NHS provide compared to 20 - 30 years ago, mean it's got to cost more.
However, all that PFI bollox needs to go.
£100 per month will get you a very nice private health insurance policy
Not if you're over 70 it won't
It's a bottomless pit the more you put in the more it will cost. The service will always be on the brink as costs will increase to match the revenue.
The costs could be controlled if the government were prepared to do something about diet and obesity by tackling the food industry. About 10% of the NHS budget is for treating diabetes largely caused by obesity and apparently 1 in 6 NHS beds are occupied by diabetes sufferers.
I'm sure there are other areas of "lifestyle" health issues which ought to be tackled and scope for increased expenditure on screening and health checks to reduce the need for treatment later.
But what do I know? I'm sure Mr. Hunt has it all sorted.
There is no need for this. If all the richest people and companies were taxed properly -ie in line with incoming EU rules - we would have an NHS that would be funded beyond our wildest dreams , these ****ers pay no tax and the loss is more than double the UK total annual budget.
it's just another way of the rich bastards making the small people pay when they pay for **** all.
All of the arguments put by others in the posts above amount to nothing if everyone was taxed properly, we have all been conned into blaming lifestyle choices, lazy workers, wrong bacon, anything but the fact that the top 1% are milking us dry.
I am actually not convinced. £100 per month will get you a very nice private health insurance policy that will pay for the the nice stuff the NHS can not provide.
That private insurance is just paying for a nicely decorated room with free sky TV.
The doctors are the same as those in the NHS ward next door & the acute stuff is the expensive stuff that the NHS has to carry out anyway, including if the private provider can't do the complex stuff or something goes wrong.
Phillxx is right though, it's freeloading pensioners who are by far the biggest burden to the NHS & this won't effect them
And again even the Tories are admitting that their privatisation & reforms of the last decade have severely damaged the NHS
Surely it wouldn’t be £100 each – it would be a sliding scale based on ability to pay, just like any other tax.
Well it will need to include a realistic tax on wealth, not just income, and we know how that worked out the last time it was as suggested by the Conservatives in their election manifesto.
We as a country can’t keep increasing the tax on the younger generations whilst ignoring the wealth that has been built up in housing stock and pension funds.
Strange that one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world, is been made to look more expensive than private health.
The US system is almost double!
2014 data from https://www.rferl.org/a/26600117.html
We as a country can’t keep increasing the tax on the younger generations whilst ignoring the wealth that has been built up in housing stock and pension funds.
It is not even this, look at the offshore wealth that has not even been taxed.
Taxes need to go up to pay for the costs of Brexit, and the stall in the rise of tax revenue because of reduced growth.
The NHS could then continue its Acute core business.
Under current funding, if you did this the NHS would run out of money.
Strange that one of the most efficient healthcare systems in the world, is been made to look more expensive than private health.
Exactly^^^
I've not been able to see the actual papers yet but it was presented on the beeb as "households could be paying up to £2000 extra per year". Then they mentioned as an afterthought "in 20 years time". Not quite as scary if that info's included. Still not easy to fund with our dismal GDP forecasts though, if only there was a way to help with that.
As for the diabetes thing, see the governments repeated rolling over to the food industry lobbying & the consequences...
The UK loses at a conservative estimate 300billion a year in the shadow economy, ie tax lost from big buisness offhsoring.
Some estimate it to be 3-5 times as much.
UK annual budget is 800billion. Of which that 300 billion would add another 37% of our budget. This blows all other arguments away.
Get rid of self serving government members
Get rid of PFI on the boards of which many of the self serving scum sit in fact.
Why not make it to hold a public office position you aren't allowed to have any financial interest in government funded projects.
3p on each of income tax, VAT and NI to pay for it is the solution posed in the report, other variations can acheive the same.
At least someone is now talking about the need for tax rises across the board (i.e. not just rises for "other people").
Phillxx is right though, it’s freeloading pensioners who are by far the biggest burden to the NHS & this won’t effect them
Well if you're going to blame them I think it's only fair you include workshy spongers (AKA the unemployed) and probably immigrants and asylum seekers too!
Yes, I’d pay, but only on the basis that control of the NHS is taken away from Whitehall and into the responsibility of a commission.
Mmm... whilst political meddling is bad, I’m not sure that some sort of unelected, body most likely made up of people with professional backgrounds and relatively privilidged lives are the long term best plan. Nor does it necessarily make sense for those who spend the budget, those who decide on the taxes and those who select policies with long term strategic health benefits to be separate bodies with competing interests.
These are the people that are crippling the NHS and lowering the age expectancy of the UK middle aged and upwards population. These are the people that should be subsidising the NHS.
If they die young though they are no longer a burden on the NHS... are you sure holier than tho people who never pay excise duty for their sins, get treated for their depression and MTB injuries in their middle age and then live long enough to get hip replacements (agrivated with all their running) before dieing of some expensive to treat cancer don’t actually cost more over their lifetime (especially vs their contribution), than the obese guy who dies of a heart attack at 65.
Well if you’re going to blame them I think it’s only fair you include workshy spongers (AKA the unemployed) and probably immigrants and asylum seekers too!
Most studies show that immigrants contribute more in tax than they take in benefits, being young they tend to need less medical assistance.
it’s freeloading pensioners who are by far the biggest burden to the NHS & this won’t effect them
Well the poor ones, who don't earn enough to pay tax won't be able to contribute any more, but all pensioners are subject to income tax (if they earn enough). There's a good argument for removing the NI exemption for pensioners, but that won't pay for the shortfall as most pensioners mainly rely on the state pension.
All the short journey motor vehicle users, heavy smokers/drinkers that do less than two hours aerobic exercise per week… Please form an orderly, very long queue here.
^^ this
I'd also like to see anyone who signed off on prescribing paracetamol etc educated on why it won't do someone any harm to pay the 20p themselves instead of having the NHS pay ten or twenty times that for the same thing.
Besides, make it better for everyone. Organ donor? Have 10% off your contributions. Same for blood/platelet donors.
I think though that if you want a world class service you have to pay for it, and those that can afford it the most should cough up.
Most studies show that immigrants contribute more in tax than they take in benefits, being young they tend to need less medical assistance.
Ah, good thing that none of them will stay, have babies, become old and/or get ill in the future then. Wouldn't want to ever consider future liabilities in our short term accounting, would we?
All the short journey motor vehicle users, heavy smokers/drinkers that do less than two hours aerobic exercise per week… Please form an orderly, very long queue here.
Does that queue go in front of, or behind, the one with the broken legs, arms and collarbones from MTB'ing and the knee and hip replacements for joggers?
Ah, good thing that none of them will stay, have babies, become old and/or get ill in the future then. Wouldn’t want to ever consider future liabilities in our short term accounting, would we?
Which is fantastic news as they will be the ones wiping your arse working for the NHS when you're a free loading pensioner.....
Pointless arguments. We need the NHS… it needs to do more… that will cost more… if we want Brexit we can't rely on significant growth or the government spending less on non-NHS areas, so taxes go up… pretty simple really. Of course, many will see this as an opportunity to turn the NHS into something else entirely… just keeping the logo for lapel badges, buses, and adverts full of blatant lies.
Logans run job done.
Society in the future may just value old people's lives less as society degenerates anyway.
Not to me - the last 3 ops I have had have all been on Cigna or Bupa - 1 of them was in a NHS hospital - but I only had to wait 3 days!
NHS for Emergency medicine and the helicopters + Mental Health and Disabled Patients
Everyone else can take out insurance
Society in the future may just value old people’s lives less as society degenerates anyway.
I'm beginning to think I'm glad I'm as old as I am. I've had some very good times and I'll be dead before it all turns to shit.
I'm struggling to understand how the NHS has successfully operated for 70 years but is suddenly unsustainable now?
Is it worth it ? I am actually not convinced. £100 per month will get you a very nice private health insurance policy that will pay for the the nice stuff the NHS can not provide. The NHS could then continue its Acute core business.
I'm not one for national pride, but I am glad that I grew up in a country offering national services equal for each individual. That's how it should be in my opinion. Quite often, those who can't afford it are those who need it most. And you will only get better healthcare privately because someone else is missing out. I'd prefer to keep it in the NHS.
Interesting that by far the biggest cost factor in the NHS is staffing, of which 30%, goes straight back to the inland revenue.
Paying hugely high interest rates of PFI schemes due to "risk" is a bit bonkers as well. Given they are government backed. Wouldn't it have been better to use NHS Pension Fund money to fund PFI
Outsourcing the NHS's purchasing, warehousing & delivery organisation to DHL has also been a massive disaster, as their "cost+" pricing disincentivises them from agressively persuing better prices
I also wonder about the cost to the American economy, of having a half-fit workforce, carrying ailments they are unable to pay to have treated.
I would rather the government generated any additional funds from clamping down on tax avoidance, corporate and personal offshoring and non dom status.
NHS budget should be based on a calculation of number of people in country, age groups of those people and likelyhood to need healthcare along with average cost
The fact that is not done is what leaves us with a shortfall every year and now a need for a what appears to most people and out of plan increase. If the increase were in line with need over the last 40 years it would just be expected and accepted
I’m struggling to understand how the NHS has successfully operated for 70 years but is suddenly unsustainable now?
We used to expect old people to die, now we try to keep them alive.
I love what the NHS stands for but it has got to the point where it is miles removed from its original purpose. The amount of people who abuse the system for their own means is shocking, the waste internally is shameful and the whole PFI shambles is, or should be, a national embarrassment.
Cut the system back to its core services and sort out the waste, then we can see how much it really costs. If that means I have to take out an insurance policy to enable me to go biking then so be it. I have a few friends who work in he NHS - 2 nurses, 1 GP and 2 ambulance paramedics - and the stories they tell me of how inefficient the system is shocks me, even after years of hearing the same thing over and over again.
If any more funding does get chucked into the NHS then I guarantee it will be swallowed up by the unions demanding instant wage rises etc. I'm not arguing that the staff don't deserve their wages at all, they more than earn their pay and if it was possible I'd want then to be paid handsomely, but it's a finite amount of money that needs to go around the whole system.
Never w to f we could find a way to make Google, Facebook, Amazon and Starbucks pay their taxes coreectly then I'd be more than happy for every penny of that to be sent directly to the NHS coffers. Pretty sure that would be a much larger cash injection.
How much of that gets split between freeloaders who never pay a penny into the system and shareholders who take great delight in ramping up cost for a box of tissues.
No thanks.
Also, those massive conglomerates of the Drugs industry charging £88 for a box of aspirin... and let’s not forget those self absorbed conglomerates also support this current contard government... so, as is always the case, whilst you have a bunch of retards “ruining” the country becuse of thier own political narrow minded self centred the normal citizen has to pay more ... for less.
Some of you voted the retards in.
Health and social care costs huge amounts across Europe and N America whether it is paid for through tax or insurance or both.
UK spends just lower than average of most developed countries (and significantly lower than Germany/France) as proportion of GDP and we get what we get. Figure 3 in link below shows figures
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9186
Also shows how massively expensive the US system is! Interesting that UK is not massively out of step in terms of public/private spend proportion with rest of Europe.
OECD ranks UK system at the upper end of efficiency not least because insurance systems increase transaction costs and creates perverse incentives between providers and commissioners of healthcare.
The bottom line is that good healthcare costs increasingly more as technology improves and lives lengthen. The choice is how good we want it to be and how fair. I am big on fairness personally, it is part of what defines our national identity.
On the PFI point - the Govt can borrow at very low rates - certainly less than 2% - whereas PFI has commercial capital costs built in - so has to deliver efficiency over public capital worth more than the difference in capital costs. This is the irredeemable economic flaw in PFI - the other issue is one of intent. Private companies are there to maximize profits whereas public sector should operate on an ethics of maximising public good.
ninfan, in 1960 average life expectancy was 71, it's now 81. What age would you like to die at?
@Milky1980, are "core services" just the ones you understand the need for, and benefit of, as a lay person?
@Olddog, "fairness" has been redefined in this country, to mean the wealthy not being mandated into helping those less fortunate… (especially by those who don't release that they are one of the people who benefit from such a system… if not now, then before their end of life).
I’m struggling to understand how the NHS has successfully operated for 70 years but is suddenly unsustainable now?
It blew it's budget by 50% in the first year and has always needed more money that it had...
A good read if you're really interested is:
It is also generally acknowledged that as societies get more advanced, they spend a higher proportion of GDP on health care, partly as they value life more and partly as more and more treatments become available. All the big 'easy wins' like penicillin and small pox immunisation have been had, so we're into diminishing returns now....