If everyone was taxed an extra pound, would that save the NHS?

[EddyF]

Might be a silly question but if you don’t ask, you don’t learn!

I have just a post elsewhere (not MN) where people are discussing their wait time to be seen at A&E and it’s quite shocking.

I think people would be In favour of paying a slight tax increase of a minimal amount such as £1/1.50 from tax to try and fix the NHS. Is this unrealistic?

I have attended a hospital in the US, and the experience was such a stark contrast to the feel of hospitals here. I know obviously because the US is not ‘free’ like the NHS. I just remember it being like a spa service.

I would pay more tax to save the NHS - but social care is also in a critical state and affects the NHS, with "bed blocking" etc, so that needs reforming too. Except changes to that have been delayed further. Both need to be overhauled.

They do pay the same rate. The lower rate of NI is for any earnings above the threshold only.

@CinnamonJellyBeans I believe the main way we can ease the burden is by healthy people looking after our bodies as best we can

At 64 I was on no medication at all, took no drugs, didn't smoke, drank moderately and took exercise. A routine checkup led to me being diagnosed with blood cancer and the rest of my life on chemo drugs. Any suggestion about how I could have stopped my bone marrow DNA mutating with my lifestyle?

You know what? shit happens. And - putting this as politely as I can - piss off with your That way the NHS could spend its time and energy on the deserving people who have become unwell or were born unwell through no fault of their own - not having this was why the welfare state was set up in the first place.

Something tells me you'd just love workhouses coming back.

Where did the OP go?

At 64 I was on no medication at all, took no drugs, didn't smoke, drank moderately and took exercise. A routine checkup led to me being diagnosed with blood cancer and the rest of my life on chemo drugs. Any suggestion about how I could have stopped my bone marrow DNA mutating with my lifestyle?
The NHS should treat everyone that requires professional healthcare and that certainly includes you.

The point is that people looked after themselves better, reduced alcohol consumption, cooked healthily most days, didn't fall to temptation every evenings in front of the TV and gave 1h 4 times a week to exercise, their chance of developing diabetes and other lifestyle conditions would reduce. We are not talking about people with health conditions that prevents them to do so, who put on weight due to medication etc...we are talking about common Jo who let themselves put in a stone every year, know they should do something about it, but opt for denial instead.

People who live healthy lives are a horrible drain on the NHS and social care. They live to 90 taking an ever increasing cocktail of absurdly expensive drugs, have an army of carers and draw their pensions for decades. End of life care is where all the money goes.

Really fat people die of a heart attack in their 50s, few drugs, no carers, no pension drawn.

Huge tax of fruit and veg needed, subsidise fat and sugar to make them essentially free.

No. The same level of waste and inefficiency would still be there because nobody is brave enough to strip it right back and rebuild.

Didn't Johnson increase NIC to help fund the NHS initially & Social Care in the long-term but Truss put it back down again?

Can't remember wether Sunsk has put it back up or not - I'm passed following the incompetence of our current Govt! 🙄

Green leafy veg should be £30 a bag. Huge cakes should be 10p.

Average age of death drops to 45, pensions, elderly social care, expensive end of life drugs are essentially gone. NHS saved.

I do always wonder if the 'healthy lifestyle' thing even adds up as a financial saving anyway.
Person A - Overweight, smokes, drinks, no exercise, on diabetes medication, dies at 60 because of lifestyle.
Person B - Slim, fit, healthy lifestyle, lives to 95, after spending 30 years in retirement and five years in a care home.

The unhealthy people cost a lot more than the healthy ones as very few healthy people spend 2 years never mind 30 in care!

Most people -90%- die without needing care

If we could get rid of type 2 diabetes that would help a lot

I still think we should legalise and tax drugs
Prohibition is failing , the war on drugs is failing , we might as well get the tax revenue

@Findwen No, it wouldn't work: people would cheat by getting allotments and growing their own leafy greens!

It's not crap. It's entitled people, wilfully abusing the gift of good health, knowing they can go to hospital for gastric bypasses, new knees and medication. taking resources just because they can, leaving no money, equipment, beds or staffing for the people who cannot avoid ill-health through sheer bad luck or genetics.

If there was no NHS to pick up the bill, we'd all adopt a preventative attitude to our own health.

Yeah, poor people in America are all slim and healthy.

Would you like unicorns with that?

@Kendodd I cannot see your logic. Poor people in America qualify for medicaid, which is free.

If you are ironically implying that poor people in America are not slim and healthy? This would indeed tie into my logic that they don't need to maintain their personal health, as Medicaid will pick up the tab.

However, from a more informed perspective, I am aware that ill-health and poverty are actually causal. and there are many sociological and mental reasons for this.

But it did work, we had a few 100 thousand on waiting lists, ambulances arrived within minutes and social care functions.

Then we had 10 years of Austerity, other countries had 5.

Many other countries have free at the point of use healthcare, they also had covid and ukraine, yet they have functioning healthcare.
They do not have 7.2m waiting for treatment and they attend stroke and accident patients, they do not have 20 or 30 ambulances waiting days to hand over patients at AE.

Why are we so badly affected?

...and I forgot to mention that we could reduce our risk of dementia by about 1/3 through healthier living.

Ha ha Do you mean like we did pre NHS? Sick people unable to care for themselves ended up dead or in the workhouse.

My Gran would tell me that during the 20s and 30s, the beer would flow down the streets on a friday / Sat night when the men got paid & the women would also pay for it later that night.

Incredible that some people have no idea why they formed the NHS in the fist place.

Not sure that's correct about reducing dementia @CinnamonJellyBeans . Age is usually the primary cause. DMIL, who died last month at 93, lived pretty healthily all her life, but developed vascular dementia and was diagnosed at 87.

No., Guessing there are about 30m tax payers that is £30m. It woudl be money down the drain. Gordon Brown put 1% on NI to fund the NHS for a generation -I remember it well. We are still paying the extra 1% and seem to have worse care then before. I would rather we could opt out of or abolish the NHS and reduce tax.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48963215

I had no idea until I read that a few weeks back.

Actually Jamie diamon from jp Morgan and chase, recommends a balanced tax system.

@helford - we know why we have it but come on, it is not set up to deal with clinical obesity and the resultant diabetes. In the 20s and 30s people had problems getting enough to eat!

Mind you we have food banks now so perhaps what's changed.