According to Politics Home this morning:
The chairs of 21 select committees have signed a letter to Theresa May calling for an "urgent" parliamentary commission on health spending.
The MPs warn of a "serious decline in services" unless prompt action is taken by ministers.
“We call on the government to act with urgency and to take a whole system approach to the funding of the NHS, social care and public health," said Health committee chair Sarah Wollaston.
"On behalf of all those who rely on services, we need to break down the political barriers and to agree a way forward.”
The letter says a commission could gather evidence and report to the Government by Easter next year.
I have to say that this is wholly unnecessary. We can afford the NHS. I argued the case for that at the Royal Society of Medicine last August. Sarah Wollaston was there. She clearly was not listening.
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Listening but not hearing or not understanding. But then she’s a Tory. Hunt has the answer though…a hypothecated tax.
I suspect this is just window dressing, appearing to be concerned but actually doing nothing.
I will repost my thoughts on that
G Hewitt says:
“Listening but not hearing or not understanding. But then she’s a Tory. Hunt has the answer though…a hypothecated tax.”
Which will almost certainly, if pursued, be in the form of an increase in NI contributions which are about as regressive a tax as there is.
And they’ll ‘sell’ it easily enough because the right wing media is right behind the idea of hypothecation. It fits the tax and spend narrative. It will be ‘popular’ suggestion.
Sarah Wollaston et al need to either wake up to or admit the fact that the ‘serious decline in services’ actually is part of the on-going and successful plan for NHS privatisation. That will be the future of the NHS unless a new government (there is no hope that the current one will change its neoliberal spots) gets forthrightly behind a NHS Reinstatement Bill:
http://www.nhsbillnow.org/
or something similar, plus gets its head around the fact that any sovereign government has the power to fully fund high quality public services.
No Hunt is sounding out if a hypothecated tax, or threat of, can be a weapon to continue destruction of our social health service under the heading “Is the NHS worth what we are paying for it?”. A chorus to bellow in the Liars Music Hall (House of Commons).
Interesting take, on the hypothecation issue,Tony_B.
I’m not arguing.
I think it was Chomsky who pointed out that first they underfund it, then when it doesn’t work and people want change they say that privatisation is the only answer.
But apparently the NHS is the last bastion of communism, according to Prof K Sikora, cancer specialist, freelance economics expert and medical director of a private health firm who says we need to pay more for health insurance. Meanwhile, another medical expert, Dr Henry Marsh, who thinks private health care is parasitic, likes the idea of a hypothecated tax. But at least they both agree that the NHS (in England) is disintegrating and suffering death by a thousand cuts.
On the other hand, there is another way…..
Indeed
One question that always bothers me with neoliberal economics is ‘do they geninely believe it is better for for the country, or are they knowingly just looking after themselves?’ I suppose the former can be forgiven, the latter is beyond contempt.
Does anyone know the answer?
Hardly anybody understands that money is both a flow and a thing (actually stored promise) preferring to regard it as the latter and if you don’t have enough of it saved tough you’ve got to wait for that vital healthcare procedure. Humanity still at a primitive stage of evolution!
Indeed
In fully self aware self defeating pessimism, I no longer have support for the NHS because I expect the NHS to be unsupported.
While our society may be able to fully afford the NHS, I have absolutely zero trust that any increases in NHS funding would not also coincide with increased taxation.
I would expect this burden to fall disproportionately on the younger side of the workforce (of which I am part of), and be “justified” by the ever escalating costs of an ageing population.
I would then expect demographic changes to remove the necessity for strong healthcare support for the aged population over time.
This, again, I would expect to undermine the need for political support of the NHS.
The end result is that I expect any sufficient provision of resources for the NHS to be used as a political weapon to harm those in my demographic now, and again in a few decades time.
This is the kind of behaviour that I expect of UK government – irrespective of party.
Therefore while I know that:
* it is in the best interests of society to fund the NHS
* our society can afford the NHS
I expect that:
* the NHS will be used as a weapon to damage those of my demographic by our own government.
It is also true that I cannot afford private healthcare, and any failure of the NHS is a gamble with mine and my loved ones health.
Despite this, it seems to me that it is in my and my loved ones best interest for the NHS to be abolished ASAP, allowing the true cost of healthcare to be made clear.
This should allow for a stronger argument for higher wages ( for those who are lucky enough) to pay for the needed private healthcare to reduce that gamble.
The one important point that I want you to take away is that I have so little faith in the UK, Gov and people, that I do not believe in doing what I think is best, but in minimising the harm that others can do to me via manipulation of the apparatus of the state.
To save the NHS requires not only stropping those who will directly profit from its end, nor convincing those with an ideological opposition to it, nor those who selfishly think they will save money, but in convincing people who think the former groups have already won.
I admit I find that very sad