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Politics, politics, politics

Gutter Boy said:
I don't work for the public sector, but we do receive funding from it, so are bound by its tendering rules.

A little example that gets me every time is train tickets. I book a train ticket to London for me, it costs £12 from megatrain. I book the exact same ticket through our work's authorised (only permitted) seller and it costs £200. Every train journey I book, I tinkle £188 of taxpayer money into Richard Bransons and the travel agents' tax havens.
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Yeh I hate that, I work for an overseas government at the same for me on booking flights. I can get cheaper flights myself but go through a government appointed agency and it costs a bomb.
 
the dza said:
According to the link I posted earlier, their county councils have the right to collect income tax, so their local government tax and spending seems to operate the way ours does nationally. So they collect much more tax at a local level and spend it accordingly. They still operate to the Beveridge principle in that it's taxation and spending that provides healthcare to citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Sweden#Financing

Costs for health and medical care amounted to approximately 9 percent of Sweden’s gross domestic product in 2005, a figure that remained fairly stable since the early 1980s. By 2015 the cost had risen to 11.9% of GDP -the highest in Europe.[4] Seventy-one percent of health care is funded through local taxation, and county councils have the right to collect income tax. The state finances the bulk of health care costs, with the patient paying a small nominal fee for examination. The state pays for approximately 97% of medical costs
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I don't think that's the same basis as our healthcare system at all. I think it's a very important distinction that our taxes are all thrown into an incredibly large pot which is arbitrarily dished out to various uses and places as is seen fit. That removes a lot of the connection between the great big hole in one's pay packet and the visibility of their local healthcare.
 
scaramanga said:
I don't think that's the same basis as our healthcare system at all. I think it's a very important distinction that our taxes are all thrown into an incredibly large pot which is arbitrarily dished out to various uses and places as is seen fit. That removes a lot of the connection between the great big hole in one's pay packet and the visibility of their local healthcare.
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Taxes are levied, collected and spent on healthcare. We get treated at our local hospital, so do they. The cost of that is borne by the tax-payer. So the basis is the same, which I guess is why when there are articles/reports on what countries have healthcare systems on a Beveridge principle, Sweden would be on the list with the UK and others.

Our local authorities are weaker, theirs are (seemingly) more powerful, so theirs is done (more) at a local level. Maybe that's a better system of taxing and spending, I don't know. Sweden has a very high effective tax rate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden "The effective taxation rate in Sweden is commonly cited as among the highest in the world"). They fund their healthcare system from taxation and spend more of their GDP on that healthcare system than any other European country.

Maybe if we moved to a Swedish model of taxation and empowered our local authorities, then we'd fund our healthcare system in the same way. That might be better, so people could draw more of a connection between their taxes paid and their local services. I don't think your tax bill would be any lower on their model, nor do I think you'd be able to choose to only pay the tax for the only bits that you use.
 
the dza said:
Taxes are levied, collected and spent on healthcare. We get treated at our local hospital, so do they. The cost of that is borne by the tax-payer. So the basis is the same, which I guess is why when there are articles/reports on what countries have healthcare systems on a Beveridge principle, Sweden would be on the list with the UK and others.

Our local authorities are weaker, theirs are (seemingly) more powerful, so theirs is done (more) at a local level. Maybe that's a better system of taxing and spending, I don't know. Sweden has a very high effective tax rate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden "The effective taxation rate in Sweden is commonly cited as among the highest in the world"). They fund their healthcare system from taxation and spend more of their GDP on that healthcare system than any other European country.

Maybe if we moved to a Swedish model of taxation and empowered our local authorities, then we'd fund our healthcare system in the same way. That might be better, so people could draw more of a connection between their taxes paid and their local services. I don't think your tax bill would be any lower on their model, nor do I think you'd be able to choose to only pay the tax for the only bits that you use.
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I think it probably is a better model as long as tax regions are allowed to compete for business and/or residents - people should be able to choose if they want a high tax/high spend region or move a few miles to a low tax/low spend one.

That would be a far better model to work with. The trouble with our system is that we had to reduce local authority spending because they're all full of trots and kept taxing the arse out of us.
 
the dza said:
And how many people die in the meantime? Are you happy for your wife/kids/parents to not get the care they need for the sake of "jam tomorrow"? Or maybe someone elses wife/kids/parents? Because that's the reality of underfunding the NHS coupled with cuts to social care.
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An appeal to emotion won't fix any problem and is not useful. Plus what needs to be taken into account is the state of the countries finances when reductions to funding were implemented. We were in the doo doo plain and simple. And still are. People's health should be a number 1 priority BUT even that is not immune to taking a hit on behalf of something that laughably held more importance and needed bailing out.
Either way times are not as they were 10 years ago and I'm sure they're not underfunding in real terms on purpose.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
Im sure thats true. I can only speak to my own experience which is that of your average pleb going to the doctors/hospital.

And, honestly, Ive no complaints. The doctor could have been more proactive with some issues my wife had, but thats not down to the service.

When we have needed them they have been there and they have been great.
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That very well should have been down to the service.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
I put it down to the individual more than the practice.
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But I hear comments like yours often, and although I don't know the specifics of your concerns makes me wonder whether GPs/doctors are not always able to 'act" in the way they would if given the freedom to.

Ie time constraints, cost constraints, waiting list constraints, pushing products etc
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
An appeal to emotion won't fix any problem and is not useful. Plus what needs to be taken into account is the state of the countries finances when reductions to funding were implemented. We were in the doo doo plain and simple. And still are. People's health should be a number 1 priority BUT even that is not immune to taking a hit on behalf of something that laughably held more importance and needed bailing out.
Either way times are not as they were 10 years ago and I'm sure they're not underfunding in real terms on purpose.
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The only appeal to emotion I made was to make it a personal question (i.e. "your wife/kids/parents") . However, it's a reality that there has been a spending squeeze, a reality that there has been £Billions in cuts to social care and that, as a result, the service struggles and more people die or suffer without operations that they need to have. So it's more an appeal to reality. Less money = more problems.

Also, re. the state of the country's finances -- the way this government chose to go about deficit reduction (they don't talk about it too much anymore having missed their own self-imposed targets) was a political choice, there was nothing forcing them to go about it the way that they did. They have chosen to lower certain taxes (for example, corporation tax, inheritance tax) whilst cutting other services because of ideology, they didn't have to do things that way, it was their choice. So on the contrary, their underfunding of the NHS and other services is most certainly on purpose.
 
the dza said:
The only appeal to emotion I made was to make it a personal question (i.e. "your wife/kids/parents") . However, it's a reality that there has been a spending squeeze, a reality that there has been £Billions in cuts to social care and that, as a result, the service struggles and more people die or suffer without operations that they need to have. So it's more an appeal to reality. Less money = more problems.

Also, re. the state of the country's finances -- the way this government chose to go about deficit reduction (they don't talk about it too much anymore having missed their own self-imposed targets) was a political choice, there was nothing forcing them to go about it the way that they did. They have chosen to lower certain taxes (for example, corporation tax, inheritance tax) whilst cutting other services because of ideology, they didn't have to do things that way, it was their choice. So on the contrary, their underfunding of the NHS and other services is most certainly on purpose.
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An appeal to emotion is quite often a personal question that's how you get it to work.

There has obviously been financial cuts to the service, which unquestionably has had an affect. My point was to make the connection and look at some reasoning behind those cuts, to try and ascertain whether they were warranted and a by product of a larger crisis, that also cut funding to a wide spectrum of other services.

Whether it is solely born out of a parties ideology is doubtful and dismissive of the task facing anyone trying to balance the books at the time. A task that, as you point out, they are struggling to do.

Of course the alternative of spend your way out of it, especially on the public sector, would have been the silver bullet everyone missed.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
An appeal to emotion is quite often a personal question that's how you get it to work.

There has obviously been financial cuts to the service, which unquestionably has had an affect. My point was to make the connection and look at some reasoning behind those cuts, to try and ascertain whether they were warranted and a by product of a larger crisis, that also cut funding to a wide spectrum of other services.

Whether it is solely born out of a parties ideology is doubtful and dismissive of the task facing anyone trying to balance the books at the time. A task that, as you point out, they are struggling to do.

Of course the alternative of spend your way out of it, especially on the public sector, would have been the silver bullet everyone missed.
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That's certainly up for debate. IMO, they set impossible deficit reduction targets and were not particularly concerned with meeting them (the sky hasn't fallen in when those targets were missed) but it did/does give fantastic cover for shrinking the role of the state, something many Tory politicians are ideologically committed to. How do cuts to inheritance tax help balance the books? Or would that be a change that comes more from political ideology? IMO, the latter.
 
Sounds like the EU are doing a good job of creating a platform for EU business operations.
As we are still in the EU, can we borrow some negotiators?!.
 
monkeybarry said:
Sounds like the EU are doing a good job of creating a platform for EU business operations.
As we are still in the EU, can we borrow some negotiators?!.
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The answer to which, of course, is to be creating trade relationships around the world now.

The EU will tell us this is not allowed, the only appropriate response to which would be a solitary middle finger.
 
Nicer carpets in private hospitals. Often same Consultants who work for both NHS and private. The big difference is waiting times. But not all of the NHS has long waits. Things like hip replacements are so common there are long waits.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
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