NHS fallen to 31 in the world since Tories took over.

forever!

One thing is absolutely for sure is that the state has stopped the country being in an even worse state than it already is. All those people who claim that "big state" is a bad thing should go away and have a rethink.

Friends now, growstuff?

I was on my way to a talk by Ann Pettifor on the fateful day in 2017 when I had a heart attack. :-(

MaizieD

Pantglas2

Thanks for your last two posts Growstuff- I can tell you’re a teacher, and a good one! Best explanation I’ve seen on the subject and easy for simpletons like me to understand.!

Considering that in the first part of her post at 01.43 growstuff says exactly the same as what I was saying yesterday about money creation and the purpose of taxation I feel both vindicated and miffed!

Don't be miffed. As somebody who has been a convert to MMT for years, I was miffed that you seemed to be lecturing me.

Callistemon

growstuff I did suggest that the best way for the Government to borrow to pay for the current crisis would be to borrow from us, from pension funds etc in the way of bonds.

It's a fine balancing act between creating money and rampant inflation.
Surely creating money without fundamental backing would create longterm problems?
Why is Russia steadily buying up gold reserves?

Money is no longer backed up by gold. I don't know why Russia is buying up gold. I would imagine it sees it as a safe commodity, just like anything else which can be traded. The value of gold isn't linked to the amount of money (bits of paper promising to pay the bearer) in the world.

Yes, there is a danger if too much money is floating about an economy that there will be inflation. In fact, some inflation is a good thing.

The real danger without taxation is that a handful of people accumulate an excessive amount of it, which is what happens in a totally free market economy, and it's not directed towards the places where it can benefit a whole society.

Well MaizieD and growstuff I understand and agree with both your positions, but do not post often because I recognise that many opinions are deeply entrenched, and bound up in political ideology.

But, Greeneyedgirl, if no-one makes these positions , and their rationale, clear, how are people's ideas about the economy ever going to change?

We know that austerity was wrong. Even the IMF says it was wrong. It greatly slowed the pace of recovery from 2008 and ruined many people's lives into the bargain. But while ever people go on believing the mendacious 'household economy' myth they will a) vote against party policies which are grounded in different economic thought and b) accept unquestioningly more unnecessary austerity.

It's a fine balancing act between creating money and rampant inflation.

To put it very broadly, inflation is a result of too much money and very little to buy with it. While there are the resources available for purchase (and, in the case of our current discussion about the NHS no-one could deny that there is plenty that needs to be purchased), and we have a sovereign currency that we make all our financial transactions in, inflation is the very least of our worries.
Citing the three favourites, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and the Wiemar Republic is meaningless because they had vastly different financial and political landscapes from the UK's.

Surely creating money without fundamental backing would create longterm problems?

What 'fundamental backing' are you thinking of, Callistomen?

Thanks, Pantglas

Well MaizieD and growstuff I understand and agree with both your positions, but do not post often because I recognise that many opinions are deeply entrenched, and bound up in political ideology.

Wasting you time in other words, but hey it makes for interesting reading . But on the other hand sad for the future of our Public Health Service because I believe that the majority of opinions on here mirror what quite a big swathe of the electorate think.

growstuff I did suggest that the best way for the Government to borrow to pay for the current crisis would be to borrow from us, from pension funds etc in the way of bonds.

It's a fine balancing act between creating money and rampant inflation.
Surely creating money without fundamental backing would create longterm problems?
Why is Russia steadily buying up gold reserves?

Don’t take offence MaizieD - it’s me that doesn’t always grasp something at the first (or tenth!) attempt and then the lightbulb ? moment happens when someone puts it over in a way that sinks in that I feel a bit daft for not grasping it sooner!

A bit like cryptic xword clues when you read it, don’t get it, walk away to do something else, come back and see it immediately- how does that work?

I agree in principal with the idea of a health tax to be paid throughout your lifetime . But I worry about those who are working , minimum wage on the breadline who are just about making ends meet having to pay the health tax on top of everything else. The other thing is fear is that a possible tax will be thrown at employers who may be forced to pay on top of the job tax (employers NI) and the workplace pension (pretty useless anyway but pointless if you don’t make it to 70).

I think maybe a revamp of the NI could be the way forward where we all pay NI for life (taking into account income of course) .

Pantglas2

Thanks for your last two posts Growstuff- I can tell you’re a teacher, and a good one! Best explanation I’ve seen on the subject and easy for simpletons like me to understand.!

Considering that in the first part of her post at 01.43 growstuff says exactly the same as what I was saying yesterday about money creation and the purpose of taxation I feel both vindicated and miffed!

Whitewavemark2

Someone has mentioned that it needs a complete overhaul.

I think we could do no better than look at the systems on our doorstep, like Switzerland, France Germany etc.

I think Switzerland is (this is only from memory) a good system. People pay into a set insurance which is used to fund not for profit charity run hospitals. If a person is poor the government contributes for them.

I’d rather have a European system, than the dreadful American system where the poor including children are allowed to die through poverty.

What an uncivilised country!

We definitely don't need to follow Switzerland. I pay almost £400 a month for my Swiss health insurance, and that is with a £3000 excess that I have to pay before any claim. It is without a dedicated GP. I have to telephone the insùrance company before seeing a doctor and they assign me to whoever is cheapest. This is to keep the premiums as 'low' as possible.

It ís an absolute rip off. The one time I had to visit the doctor while I was there, the doctor and the level of service in the practice in general was appalling, despite costing over £200.

Our NHS is wonderful. The Tories are making profits for friends and family by selling bits off and using our NHS as a bargaining chip with the US. It's our national shame that we're letting them.

Thanks for your last two posts Growstuff- I can tell you’re a teacher, and a good one! Best explanation I’ve seen on the subject and easy for simpletons like me to understand.!

Health spending does need to increase - probably by about 25% to bring it in line with countries such as Germany and France. The trick is to do that without increasing inflation. It's actually a small part in a fundamental rebalancing of how people are taxed and, therefore, contribute to the way the country is run.

I also think the internal market needs to be scrapped as a matter of urgency. We've seen in the current situation how the whole system has been chopped up and isn't working well as a co-ordinated whole. Everybody is competing against each other and trying to offload responsibility/blame.

The NHS also needs to listen to its users (patients). My personal bugbear is the way the personalised GP service is being run down in favour of remote consultations and lack of continuity. The government doesn't want the current model of GP partners and favours salaried GPs working to a script.

From a macro-economic point of view, the King's Fund is wrong.

The government can quite literally create money. It can do that at the click of a button by the Bank of England, as it has done with the current crisis. It can also issue bonds. People are queuing up to buy bonds because the government is seen as a safe investment. Pension funds rely on deficit spending by the government because they own hold huge stocks of government bonds. If nobody wanted the money pension funds hold, they'd be in real trouble. While interest rates are so low, it really doesn't matter whether the government has a debt or its balance sheet is in deficit.

Most money the government "creates" or borrows eventually comes back to the Treasury via taxation, whether as direct or indirect taxation.

So why does a government need to tax?

There are many reasons. Firstly, it needs to control the money supply; otherwise there would be rampant inflation. Secondly, it needs to direct spending. It needs to collect the money back in a cyclical process. If it didn't (and left the economy to market forces) it would never be able to control the money going to health, education, infrastructure, etc. It would never be able to achieve its aims.

Thirdly, it seeks to redistribute wealth. People are selfish and, left entirely to market forces, those with more than average would never contribute to those with less than average. However, societies are more complicated than that.

Even the most heartless need the majority of people to have money they can spend. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to make a profit. A developed country also needs educated and healthy citizens to be efficient workers. It needs good infrastructure for businesses to flourish. There's a very good reason that businesses (particularly those selling "intellectual" services) choose to do business in Europe, the US, etc rather than in most parts of Africa.

Anyway, I'm digressing.

The King's Fund is correct in claiming that the NHS is funded from taxation and NICs - on the government's balance sheet. However, the government could choose to create more money for the NHS, if it wanted. Eventually, it would need to collect the money back to avoid inflation, but any Conservative government is reluctant to collect more back from the wealthiest.

Extra money in the economy would almost inevitably find its way into the pockets of the wealthiest, but those people don't want to pay it back. That's the problem! They claim they've earned it by hard work and entrepreneurship, but that's not really the case in a marketised economy. The people making money out of the NHS are the drug companies, the equipment suppliers, the builders, etc etc. Increasingly, people providing clinical services to the NHS are making money. It's estimated that the NHS's own internal market (created by the 2011 Act) costs £30 billion in admin costs, such as negotiating procurement and legal fees for drawing up contracts.

Clicking a button to create money is the easy bit (as Sunak has found out) but deciding how that money is going to achieve its goals and claiming it back, so it recycles, is much harder.

(Sorry for the length of that - I've actually left loads out, but it's really not as simple as people seem to think.)

Health levy

MaizieD

^Some of the financial problems of the NHS could be solved overnight by charging everybody, including the economically inactive such as pensioners, a health tax, which is what happens in many other countries.^

How much would you be prepared to pay?

Nobody is listening, are they?

TAXATION DOESN'T FUND SPENDING

We have a sovereign currency. Government can create as much of it as it wants to. It could fully fund the Health service if it wanted to. It doesn't want to.

So long as people go on believing that taxes pay for everything the government can get away with underfunding and selling bits off to private enterprises while everyone goes along with their 'we can't afford it' line.

The King's Fund seems to think that the NHS is funded from general taxation, supplemented by money from NI contributions and some patient charges.

We know that Governments can create money but why not fund it better by increasing general taxation or by a healthlrvy?

Well I found this link from 3 years ago

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40608253

PinkCakes

This from Whitewavemark2...................

No luck so far but will keep looking.
Live found this and know that it was mentioned because the U.K. has fallen another place.

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiIzLGW5-fqAhW_QRUIHY3WBAoQFjAEegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fhealth%2Fnhs-world-ranking-uk-healthcare-worse-ireland-spain-slovenia-30th-lancet-a7744131.html&usg=AOvVaw1-N3hJ2q9t7mcWaIhT0Q18

The article is 3 years old.

Yes and if you’d read the conversation, you would have realised that. It is only relevant in so far as I have recently read that the NHS has slipped further down the rankings but I’m buggered if I can find the link.

This from Whitewavemark2...................

No luck so far but will keep looking.
Live found this and know that it was mentioned because the U.K. has fallen another place.

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiIzLGW5-fqAhW_QRUIHY3WBAoQFjAEegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fhealth%2Fnhs-world-ranking-uk-healthcare-worse-ireland-spain-slovenia-30th-lancet-a7744131.html&usg=AOvVaw1-N3hJ2q9t7mcWaIhT0Q18

The article is 3 years old.

Didn't mean to lecture you, growstuff, but it seemed to me that you were still talking as though the NHS was paid for from taxation.

Anyway, what I say makes not the slightest impression on anyone...

I find the whole MMT thing really interesting and very logical.

Maizie* I am fully aware that spending precedes taxation. I really don't need a lecture.

... or to be patronised.