Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 9,104
- Location
- Birmingham
How would you fund the black hole in health and social care?
1. Growth
2. If no growth then we have to live within means, and that means no improvement in services
How would you fund the black hole in health and social care?
So the 5th largest economy in the world can’t afford half decent public services wow the world is screwed!1. Growth
2. If no growth then we have to live within means, and that means no improvement in services
You could be right of course, I was just pointing out that there are other factors aswell
So you wouldn't blame it on the Soviet Unions invasion as a factor? Or any other external problem that we had no control over that impacted our economy?
1. Growth
2. If no growth then we have to live within means, and that means no improvement in services
In 2020 during Covid when I had nothing to do, I thought I'd take a look at my pension fund.
I had never really given it a second thought before. It is a defined contribution employer scheme where the funds are taken salary sacrifice, and the provider they chose to run it picked the funds it was invested in, on what they term a 'lifestyle' profile, which means that initially its more invested in stocks and shares, then as you approach retirement age it switches over to safer assets.
Anyway, I looked into the growth I'd had over the 16 ish years Ive been in the scheme, and where it was invested. I was not happy with what I found.
There was a very high proportion of UK equities. I found out that many 'default' funds have this, because the logic was its a UK scheme, for UK employees, and that meant that those people favour UK bias. This immediately seemed crazy to me, as the US has experienced much higher growth. Why would you favour UK equities over faster growing US equities with the US being the biggest economy in the world?
Inheritance tax is just another tax on the less well off. Its designed to keep people in their place, cant have to many up and commers entering the sphere of the North Norfolk Holiday yaaaaah team.
Totally agree in reality it is hardest on those in the middle, the really rich (like our chancellor) can structure there assets etc to avoid as much inheritance tax as possible where those in the middle who don’t have either enough money or enough knowledge to game the system get nailed. Inheritance tax certainly isn’t a tax on the poor unless your definition of poor is massively off!Hardly, (I'm sure this has been said plenty of times) if a married couple passes their home to their children then the threshold is a million quid. Nobody in the "less well off" category is sporting a million quid estate.
Can I remind everyone that on 7 September 2021, Then PM BJ announced the introduction of a Health and Social Care Tax.
By increasing NI by 1.25% (13.25% total) rom 6 April 2022 and for a separate tax to start in April 2023 to tax people a futher 1.25% to address the funding crisis in the sector.
This broke the tory manifesto of not raising taxes, but BJ insists that it was required. "we cannot shirk the challenge of putting the NHS back on its feet"
manifesto: https://www.conservatives.com/our-plan/economy
back bench anger: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...d-tory-anger-over-manifesto-breaking-tax-rise
Then backbencher Hunt said "social care does not actually get as much money as it needs."
Social care won't get money it needs, warns Jeremy Hunt
The Conservative former health secretary tells MPs there is a risk the NHS will "gobble up" all the funds.www.bbc.co.uk
7 months later; November 2022, This was reversed by Kami Kwarteng stating, "Taxing our way to prosperity has never worked"
National Insurance rise to be reversed in November
The 1.25% rise will be reversed from 6 November and a levy to fund health and social care will be axed.www.bbc.co.uk
in November 2023, now Chancellor Hunt in the "Autumn Statement for growth" announced a 2p cut to NI in January 2024.
The uk entered a recession late 2023 before the NI cuts took place.
What is a recession and how could one affect me?
A recession means the UK economy has shrunk for two three-month periods - or quarters - in a row.www.bbc.co.uk
Now two days ago, during the spring budget, Chancellor Hunt cuts NI by 2% again...
Budget 2024: Jeremy Hunt cuts National Insurance again as election looms
But Labour says many people will still be worse off because of existing freezes to income tax bands.www.bbc.co.uk
So in the space of less than 2 and a half years... the same party that was predicting gloom and doom for the future of our health service unless we start to pay an extra 3%+ now thinks that we can pay 4% less and it will be fine.
Please tick all that applies...
[ ] they have found a magic money tree
[ ] they make **** up as they go along
[ ] they don't care about the billions of people that need the NHS nor the future of social care
[ ] it's an election year
[ ] they are salting the battlefield before losing the war.
[ ] other, please explain:
Which actually boils down to ‘they spend more on healthcare per person than we do’. The UAE who have the best healthcare in the region rely on a mixture of taxation and compulsory insurance and provide universal healthcare. The funding method might be different but the critical difference is expenditure and it is the same in basically every country in the world with better healthcare than the UK contrary to our government continual snipping by international standards the NHS delivers decent value for money and is significantly underfunded.Very simple, follow model similar to middle east.
Problem, they don't want to do that.
N.I cut will made pension funding an issue in the future. Rise in age I guess.
Of course the government is ultimately responsible, as you put it, in the long term but they can't react to external factors as quickly as say the stock exchange which can react within minutes.The glaringly obvious bit you are missing with your simplistic view is of course Govts can't control what external problems occur, but it's 100% in their control how they react to the problem.
That's what you judge them on.
So the 5th largest economy in the world can’t afford half decent public services wow the world is screwed!
Interesting how you suggest growth yet have no faith in the country’s economic growth, or at least not enough faith to invest in it with your pension.
Excluding the fact that if you can genuinely wait 9 hours for an ambulance you clearly don't need emergency medical assistance
Agreed, but did the person actually survive the 9 hour wait?
They don't know from one minute to the next what jobs are coming in obviously, jobs are prioritised on need not time. So they will go to a cardiac arrest first, then down the list in order of priority. If you have had a gall and you are in no danger you will be classed as none urgent. Then put onto of that the number of calls that come in on a single shift. You could have no priority calls and loads of quick turnaround ones or the complete opposite of a major RTC combined with 20 cardiac arrests. Now put in this the hospital where they have to wait to hand over you get the 9hr waits(yes sometimes the system will break and sometimes a person gets missed).I think the whole 9 hour wait thing is just the abulance services way of saying you don't really need an ambulance - it doesnt logically make sense that they can possibly know the next 9 hours of emergencies..
Never really understood the people that will wait rather than get a lift or a taxi - unless you literally cant move or are spraying blood everywhere seems crazy to wait. Although i suppose you dont then have to wait in the queue at A&E to be seen..
Yes, money should be going up in the NHS and other departments, but there is no qualified people to actually make good decisions, that's how our democracy works.The number of ambulance drivers and paramedics has dropped, when it should be increasing. N.I cut will damage the NHS, most lord's and some MPs have vested interest in private medical companies.
I think the whole 9 hour wait thing is just the abulance services way of saying you don't really need an ambulance - it doesnt logically make sense that they can possibly know the next 9 hours of emergencies..
Or in some cases wasting the ambulance services time(this also applies to the police and fireservice).While partly that, it's also staff who have been doing the job for X years who will have a decent idea of average demand, wait times etc. on certain days/times and be able to give an educated estimate based on the current situation and the caller's priority.
Unfortunately there simply aren't enough ambulances, and people are dying because of it.
Or in some cases wasting the ambulance services time(this also applies to the police and fireservice).
The son has said about regulars, but even though they know it's from a time waster they still have to attendYes, that certainly doesn't help!
The son has said about regulars, but even though they know it's from a time waster they still have to attend
Back when I was working in gen med, there was this patient that was admitted nearly 150x in 9 months with recurrent "chest pain" only to find out that he would call the ambulance when he was having a tiff with his wife and just said he had chest pain so that he could go to A+E and not have to argue with his wife...