Justice Minister Phillip Lee MP (no, you're not alone: I'd also never heard of him before) told a Tory Party fringe meeting that the NHS was a Ponzi scheme yesterday. According to the BBC that was because it was "about to collapse". They add:
By the time working people reached the age where they had to rely on them, these services may no longer exist, he told a Tory conference fringe meeting.
This is an interesting idea for a number of reasons. First he defined the young as being those less than 44, which was once middle age. Second, this implies that he thinks the crisis is at least thirty years off as demand does not rise rapidly until the mid seventies for most people. Third, he claims a clairvoyance about future government spending that most might think unwise.
His suggestion that there is, then, a Ponzi scheme from which the young may never benefit is really rather odd. Firstly, that assumes we only consider our own interests. At 44 my primary concern was the care the NHS provided to my sons (and one was saved by it, without doubt). Now my primary concern is my quite old father. I very much doubt I am alone in thinking in this way. His prescription that there is only personal self interest is very odd for a party supposedly of the family.
Then there is the fact that there is no reason why we should not have health care in thirty years time, whatever that care might be (and we simply can't imagine what might be possible by then). All we have to do is decide we want it. Then we can pay for it. It will not be a matter of not affording it. It's just a matter of setting priorities. He has suggested one priority: society may decide his are not their own. It's very presumptive of him to think otherwise
But what was curious was where he went next, as if to almost admit that his own argument was wrong. What he said according to the BBC was that:
Britain's economy and society were currently "set up for the over-65s and against the under-40s," and the Conservatives had to find a way to change that.
"You have to ask yourself the question, when confronted by significant liabilities that we currently can't meet: do we tax work or do we levy assets?
"It ain't more complicated than that, really. So, we have to find a way"
So, in fact it's not a Ponzi scheme. What he's actually saying is that the old need to pay more. And that this should be by wealth taxation of some sort.
The Express might call that death taxation.
The Mail might rage against enforced selling of the family home that is the rightful property of the children to pay for mum's social care.
And Philip Hammond might call this Venezuelan confiscation of assets.
But Mr Lee is in fact simply saying Piketty is right: we need to tax wealth after all.
But he could not resist a swipe at the NHS on they way, no doubt wishing to promote the argument that short of funds it must also be privatised, then meaning that this wealth tax he favours simply becomes the charge rendered by a virtuous and competitive private sector for the health care provided in old age for the benefit of those who might be able to afford it, and blow the rest.
All in all this may have been a typical day at the Tory party conference, but Mr Lee inadvertently revealed a hidden truth, which is that wealth has to be the right direction of travel for taxation.
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I don’t like fringes.
They should be shaved off.
Especially when they are comparing apples to potatoes as this idiot is – obviously asking the right questions but in a typical neo-lib way delivering the wrong answers for society (which will be the right ones for the City no less).
I rather think the inadvertent truth that he revealed is that under the Tories there will be no NHS – and I would suggest that this will be achieved within the lifetime of this Government- i.e. contracts for 10 years are being put in place with private American companies that Labour will not be able to unpick. My general fear is that when Labour get into power the mess that this country will be in and all public service will be so trashed that it will be impossible for Labour to make a significant impact on addressing it and the reaction from the dashed high hopes means they will not get a second term and the Tories will complete the Americanisation of this country.
I do not believe contracts cannot be unpicked
Quite agree, the post-1945 social contract was taken round the back and shot in the head.
I just unpicked my credit card contract.
Well actually the company did and were prepared to accept below a third of my offer.
I’m still on their asset ledger so they’re happy. They don’t need my cash they have more than they know what to do with.
One small domino down. Only takes one snowflake to start an avalanche.
Of course, I would say that LVT is the best way to tackle wealth inequality, but other forms of wealth taxation are urgently needed. A better form of Death Tax is ideally suited to fund care of the elderly. How do you think we can prise open the coffers of such as the Grosvenor Estate?
Deem beneficiaries to be owners
Tinkering with details is what helped the boss class put us in this mess. Turn the tax and benefit system the right way up. Simples ;o)
You might have to expand that comment. I don’t understand.
Sorry but when I moderate comments I don’t see the thread that you do
I am sure what you are responding to
Might you tell me?
While it would be improvement if the Grosvenor estate had serious taxation on it to pet it perspective unless I am mistaken it would only be £9 billion and even if confiscated would be a one off yet more than that could be found by cuting the defence budget to a level germany does and thats would be every year.
Confiscated?
What is that?
You know as in even if every last penny was taken. But like I said for a change targeting those people who truly are rich would be a change. But as I said it would still less than the saving that could be achieved by cutting the defence budget.
Sam,
before you consider cutting the defense budget you need to consider what the defense budget is for.
Then you can look at how you achieve your defence requirements/objectives, then you look at how much it might cost. Then you consider how you are going to finance it.
A bit like you would approach funding healthcare, or education, or anything else to be supplied to, for and by it’s citizens.
We’ve been doing it the other way for decades. It doesn’t work well.
We need to to spend more than many countries do on Defence to defence us against whom?? Given the uks foreign policy in the last decades Some could argue if we had no standing army the world would be a more stable and safer place, while I would not argue that I certainly think there is room to not spend among the most on defence. If i am not mistaken USA and Greece spend high amounts on defence and goodness knows those countries are not doing well either.
Sam,
Did I suggest we need to spend more on defence?
No, I didn’t. My point is that ‘defence’ spending needs to be reflective of what defence policy is aiming to achieve. I don’t believe there is consensus on that in the public sphere, the military (and Navy, if there are pedants reading this) nor amongst politicians.
There is also the matter of ‘Peacekeeping’ operations and an obligation to be able to contribute to UN programmes.
Special services like SAS have been useful in hostage situations. Far and away more effective than US attempts which have a way of going a bit Fred Carno. It grieves me to say it but the only units of similar class seem to be Israeli. SAS and elite regiments are thugs, but they are our thugs and they seem to be highly disciplined enormously skilled, effective and either very brave or insensible to fear. The Engineers are kind of useful to have around too.
Leaping on the bandwagon with the US, totally ignoring the UN position and undermining its authority is not in my play book.
Do we actually need an aircraft carrier? I don’t know, but since some pillock flogged off all the Harriers it will be of limited utility.
Do we need a nuclear deterrent? I would say preferably not, but I don’t think I’m in the majority.
Do we have a defence policy? Er ….not a coherent one, so how can we cost it? It may cost more…it may cost less. I’ve no idea. I don’t think any nation on earth has ever won a war from the air. You can usefully employ a lot of boots on the ground for the price of a Typhoon. Do you know how often they are scrambled? No neither do I. Our air space does get probed, but whether that is malign or just playing games I wouldn’t like to guess.
But, no. I’m not saying we need to spend more (or less) on ‘defence’. I’m saying how much we think we’ve got available doesn’t determine the budget. The budget is determined by what you want to do.
I always had the non-leftie-PC view that we should have a joint EU defence strategy plus, of course, a reasonable local one. Better forget that then.
Carol Wilcox,
“I always had the non-leftie-PC view that we should have a joint EU defence strategy plus, of course, a reasonable local one. Better forget that then.”
Tony Blair talked of joint or cooperative arrangements with the EU. Only once I think and never pursued the issue. Post 9/11 he went straight over to the Bush camp and actively undermined both the EU position and the UN. Slippery as an eel and as bright as a Toc H lamp.
I thought an EU defence arrangement a good idea, certainly one worthy of serious exploration on economic efficiency grounds at the very least. Current resource duplication is wasteful.
If Brexit proceeds it is highly unlikely it will be on any political agenda for the foreseeable. I share your regret.
There was a character created by the comedian, Paul Whitehouse, “the ducking-and-diving wide boy Chris Jackson, aka ‘The Crafty Cockney’, will ‘nick anything'”.
At the station someone asks him to look after their bags, he says, with a laugh, “OK, but I will steal them”.
The person laughs at the joke, the character says, “I really will steal them”. They laugh together and the person goes off, to do whatever. Chris steals the bags.
Voters are like this with the Tories. The Tories tell voters exactly what they re going to do, and voters think, ‘Nay, you won’t really’. The Tories go ahead and do what they said they were going to to, people say, But, but.
Precisely
You are quite right the NHS is not a “Ponzi” scheme and never was. I do wish politicians would not throw things from history around when they neither know much about them or more importantly understand them. The NHS at its inception was a means of allowing the lowest income groups and poor the same access to medical facilities as those enjoyed by either the better off, or those in a variety of insurance schemes, notably the old Friendly Societies. The demographics then were very different as were the social structures and nature of the economy. This is what the NHS of the 21st Century has to adjust to with the added challenge of the rapid advances in science and medicine.
What it has to adjust to is increased demand. What is the purpose of an economic system if it is not to meet reasonable demand?
Actually, I feel that this guy is actually saying some useful stuff about funding the NHS and about tax. No doubt there are plenty of things I would disagree with him about, but, yes, when wages are flatlining, interest rates are near enough zero, how are revenue taxes going to deliver the resources? Especially when with an aging population healthcare needs are going to increase.
We have an aging population. State pension age is going up. People have to work longer.
45 is the new 25!
Tax does not pay for anything
Our decision to get people to work in the NHS is what determines the level of health care
And they generate value for society
The idea that we can only have an NHS because a private sector accountant sells pays tax abuse but pays some PAYE as a result is absurd, and just not true
I agree with wealth tax. Almost everything else about this is wrong
Nicely put, Richard.
My personal observation, having listened/read the conservative diatribe for decades, is that they are altering the system so as to decrease the lifespan of those not possessing the finances to be able to provide accomodation, and healthcare, for themselves.
It’s quite a cute balancing trick: telling people that they are the caring party, while killing thousands, and being believed.
Cast your eyes over to NHS Papworth, soon to move into its purpose-built new hospital on the Cambridge medical complex. Over 300 beds. All individually housed in their own rooms.
Effectively, an NHS private hospital.
John M’
“altering the system so as to decrease the lifespan of those…”
An interesting analysis which completely ignores at least one aspect of NHS policy which has been highly successful and costly (in cash outlay) in increase life expectancy.
This is slightly tongue in cheek, but if you were seriously interested in reducing life expectancy you wouldn’t persecute smokers, you would make smoking obligatory for the over sixties if they hadn’t already started long ago.
One of the great ironies of the NHS is that it is a victim of its enormous success and successive governments have failed to capitalise on that success in realising the benefits to the economy. And signally failed to make any allowances for an increasing life expectancy which has been well documented for decades.
Well they have begun to achieve it- life expectancy is now going down.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pensioners-uk-life-expectancy-falling-institute-and-faculty-of-actuaries-a7661571.html
https://www.ft.com/content/78146114-15f5-11e7-80f4-13e067d5072c?mhq5j=e5
As already mentioned, hard-won increases in LE of the past years are now flatlining…hardly surprising considering the social care cuts, the NHS bed cuts, NHS staffing cuts, NHS staff working longer hours, multiple shifts etc.
GP prescribing cuts, meaning for many conditions the easy way to get the meds needed is a referral to secondary care.
In fact, practically everything new Labour instituted has now been cut back, from Surestart upwards.
The local hospital outsourced MSK treatment to another NHS hospital, now you get pain management not pain relief (4 hour course in how to take painkillers)
The NHS or any other health service hasn’t increased life expectancy, it has cut untimely deaths from poverty, quite a different thing.
I like that
When working as a GP my wife often said my work on tax had more impact on her patient’s well being than her work had
Ali B
Well there you are then. Policies persuade people they should stop smoking, stop drinking do healthy stuff and they die of boredom. Great.
There’s only one law stronger than the law of gravity; The law of unintended consequences.
As usual the Tories are following in the footsteps of the quasi-religious cult and ongoing scam known officially as the Republican Party, who have been crying wolf about the alleged impending bankruptcy of American Social Security, when it is probably 30 years away from such a situation, which will in any event only happen if the US Federal Government doesn’t take any action.
Which is, of course, exactly what the Teapublican sect, formerly known as the GOP, actually wants, namely the destruction of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, so the billionaires who fund the sect can become multi-billionaires, by shifting $2 trillion from one part of the budget to another in the form of tax cuts for the rich.
This article has something to say on this: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_587a4bb9e4b077a19d180e11/amp#ampshare=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-republican-obsession-with-dismantling-social-security_us_587a4bb9e4b077a19d180e11
And this one say something about the House Budget proposals
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-republicans-release-2018-budget-blueprint-targets-social/story?id=48697228
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Lee_(politician)
The above claims that Phillip Lee trained to be a GP and is still active.
Does Phillip have a big financial interest in the ongoing NHS privatisation?
Sounds like a fair question.
It has after all been a consistent trend that former ministers ‘retire’ into senior board positions in the industries they have been instrumental in privatising. Whether any of them constructively add value in these roles is anybody’s guess – except having written the rules of engagement they should be well versed in the loopholes that offer competitive advantage.
First one I was aware of was Norman (Bomber) Tebbit of Biffa picking up the local authority refuse disposal business. If I remember correctly the rules were slack enough at that stage that he was already a board member of Biffa before and during the carve-up.
Andy Crow,
“It has after all been a consistent trend that former ministers ‘retire’ into senior board positions in the industries they have been instrumental in privatising.”
Absolutely right. This tendency has been one of the key methods employed in the neo-libs corporate takeover of civil society. Its getting so that some merely enter parliament with a view to getting the corporate gig that follows it. This should (and probably will) be a much hotter topic in years to come.
I don’t see how people like these former ministers that you mention can be seen as anything but corrupt. Reward follows conflict of interest and abuse of office. If they’re not corrupt they are doing an excellent impersonation of someone that is.
Funny how people can spot a Ponzi scheme a mile off where there isn’t one. They often call them Ponzi schemes when they are Pyramid schemes anyway. and anyone with a respect for language might care to know the difference. And the NHS isn’t a Pyramid scheme either.
When there is a Pyramid scheme being run by all the major banks and finance houses, selling dodgy sub-prime loans and mortgages it becomes magically invisible. Yet another symptom of abject financial and economic illiteracy which goes right to the top of politics and finance.
Given the old idea that technology is supposed to be improving our lives and each generation should expect to be better placed than the one that preceded it. Mr Phillip Lee might like to explain why something that was quite affordable 20 or 30 years ago should be beyond our means now.
Aging population is a consideration but alone it is not an adequate excuse. He should also be reminded that Western countires with universal healthcare spend a much lower proportion of their GDP on health than the the countries that do not have it.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/heres-a-map-of-the-countries-that-provide-universal-health-care-americas-still-not-on-it/259153/
Viewed from that perspective it is not a a case of whether we can afford the NHS but whether we can afford not to have it.
K. Crosby says:
“The NHS or any other health service hasn’t increased life expectancy, it has cut untimely deaths from poverty, quite a different thing.”
I don’t think I agree with that. The NHS hasn’t been about contesting poverty except in so far as it has made medical intervention affordable to the poor.
The biggest differences to life expectancy came initially from basic hygiene in the form of civic works mostly concerned with getting back to where the privileged had been in Roman times. Vis they had drains. Clean water was crucial.
The biggest shift in infant mortality was likewise to do with surgeons washing their hands after they came out of the morgue. Somebody who was pilloried for it, pointed out that midwives (who hadn’t been cutting-up diseased bodies) had lower post natal fatalities rates.
Next came the rolling out of immunisation. I don’t think that was ever something available only to the wealthy. Getting infant deaths off the statistics shifts the average LE a long way.
The improvement of adult longevity is mostly attributable to better diet. More calories. (Ironically current falls in longevity are contributed to by too many calories.)
The NHS has contributed massively to people’s welfare as apart of a more socialist and egalitarian society during the 20th century. (Interesting that reduced LE is currently accompanied by a generation of increased income differential and extreme, albeit relative, poverty)
I believe NHS is contributory not causal and the significant cause is/was more equal income distribution.
Clean water and its benefits came long before the NHS, adequate food came with it courtesy of full employment on terms mediated by unions.
“The NHS hasn’t been about contesting poverty except in so far as it has made medical intervention affordable to the poor.”
“Except”? I think you will see how big an exception that is, when the turnstiles and cash registers are built in hospital entrances. On that point, have you noticed that we pay a cash fee to see the doctor? We pay it to the chemist and call it a prescription tax. Will that tax be abolished when a visible till is installed at the Private Equity GP surgery?
AH!. Sometimes there isn’t a reply ‘button’ to link a remark to the thread in the right place.
‘Make the beneficiaries owners’
I’m not understanding what you mean, Richard.
What I am saying is ignore the trust – simply deem either those who benefit from it, or if not them then the settlor, and if not them then the trustees (who will be deemed to be UK resident in respect of UK assets) the owners for wealth tax purposes. Find a warm bodied person to tax in other words.
“Find a warm bodied person to tax in other words.”
Phwoar! Chance would be a fine thing,!
But, Yes. I see what you mean.
K Crosby,
“…Clean water and its benefits came long before the NHS…” That was rather the point I thought I was making.
I feel your argument for the economic benefits of the NHS ….dubious(?) Certainly I accept the economic arguments in favour of socially funded health care and it’s being free at the point of delivery. No question in my mind it’s the sensible (cost effective) way to do it and that’s before you even consider the morality of rationing access by wealth.
I don’t bother to dispute the common assertion that the US health services can offer some of the World’s best medical care, but I don’t find it acceptable their market system means it also offers the worst – like none at all if you haven’t got the money to pay.
It’s my opinion that the biggest influence on improved economic outcomes was provided by the Trades Unions and their ability, through collective bargaining, to alter the balance (imbalance) between the interests of labour and capital.
I think it must, looking at the chronology, be fair to assume that the NHS was a product of that shifting balance rather than the prime mover in creating it.
That doesn’t one iota IMO diminish the importance of the NHS and it’s contribution to the welfare of the population it serves.
Re prescription charges. They are not levied in Scotland. And if Richard’s analysis of the implications GERS is even close to correct you aren’t subsidising that from England (as the MSM would like you to believe). Scotland doesn’t cripple its young people with student debt and you aren’t subsidising that either.
England was seduced by Margaret Thatcher. Scotland wasn’t, and ultimately was instrumental in her downfall. (Not very fair to kick a batty old lady, but needs must….)
I know you were, it was the point I was making too. The NHS was an alternative to a socialist health service and was acceptable to the boss class as an expedient to be worn away by attrition.