The State Of The NHS

Fair Funding For Healthcare

Sat 26 January

It all started when Sara wrote:

and yes, I am home. I won't even go into how stupid and moronic these people at the hospital are, because both Ross and I are still SO annoyed.

People of Britain, *this* is the state of your "best in the world" health system. The phrase "you get what you pay for" springs to mind. If you must cut taxes, and refuse to cut spending on fripperies such as roads and the military, *this* is the inevitable result.

If you want a proper standard of health care, you *must* pay for it. Whether that's through taxes, through pay-as-you-go, through insurance, or a mixture of the above methods is another discussion. But you can't do it on the cheap.

Sara had a bit of comeback:

True..but is it not paid for by taxes in England?

Yep, health care is almost *entirely* funded from the general tax fund. People have to explicitly elect to pay for insurance, and it's still regarded as a middle class perk.

since Ross and I pay taxes... a LOT of taxes, in fact, surely the system should be a little better?

Why is it not better? Because the health budget has to compete with everything else for the tax pound.

I mean, come on, I got sent in THREE times last week, each time they didn't know what they were doing!! two out of the three they didn't even know what I had come in for, even though the doctor/midwife had called. The second time I went in I had a letter from my doctor specifically saying that I should be induced. The third time I *heard* the midwife say why I was coming in.

Government cannot adequately fund a health service. The public perception is that taxes alone can fund great health care. This is the problem. I'm sorry that you had to demonstrate it in such a graphic way.

However its paid for, the people there are just absolute idiots who obviously cannot read letters nor remember telephone conversations that were only an hour or two beforehand.

Then these are people who are grossly incompetent, and should not be in their job any longer than it takes to type a letter of dismissal. With extra funding, there would be higher wages, and hence the job would be more attractive to people who *are* capable of (say) writing down a summary of a phone call as an aide memoire an hour later.

It's a fallacy to expect the government to fund an entire health service. It's a worse fallacy to expect the market to pick up the tab. Somewhere betwixt the two lies a happy medium. We've not found it.

Lixz picked up the last comment and ran with it...

What would you do with people sufficiently poor to not be able to pay any part of the health care costs themselves?

Entire is the key word in my note.

From a simple humanitarian perspective, there has to be some healthcare provision for those who cannot pay the market rate, and the nature of markets insists that this be paid. Possibly by charity, more likely from the public purse.

The NHS is free at the point of delivery. All its funding comes from taxation. That makes it susceptible to the whims and short termism of government. With tax cuts over the past twenty years, less money is available for health, but costs have increased. The net result is a system that is failing for want of money. Regrettably, the UK government is reluctant to accept that its flagship is underfunded, and is not seeing through its pledge to increase spending.

The government can fund a great health service, but it's going to cost. Or people can pay as they use it, or take out insurance. These are questions and policy decisions from which Anglo-Saxon societies are shying away.

There's a role for the government. There's a role for the individual. The UK hasn't got it right. Neither has the US.

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