I don’t want to pay less National Insurance, I’d like a better funded NHS

[CormorantStrikesBack]

🤷‍♀️

obviously I appreciate I’m in a position to think that, but I’m not on a huge wage. I’m glad if it helps people who are struggling but I’m also worried about the nhs, school funding, etc.

They don’t seem to be managing now, I can only imagine it will get worse. There are councils going bankrupt and cutting services, respite care, libraries, etc.

id rather carry on paying what I’m paying than risk such services been funded even less.

@Yalta of the two I spoke to neither. One was an elderly lady (in her 90s) who had fainted at home and arrived by ambulances. They thought it was cardiac related and she was waiting for a bed.

Bizarrely I recognised her daughter who was accompanying her as we spent 24 hours together in a&e last year. On that occasion my Dd had a pulmonary embolism and she had had a heart attack. Must have been a minor heart attack as they let her go home the same day, she is still waiting for her first appointment with cardiology following her heart attack. But she does have a date in December. Wtf, have a heart attack and don’t see anyone about it for a year!

The second person was someone who had aspirated on some food at home. He seemed quite well in himself. But it’s obviously serious enough to warrant a bed. But an acute thing rather than something which a GP might have been able to help with from the sound of it.

"or put it towards food or energy bills" - you mean they'll spend it...

CormorantStrikesBack

At least the lady having a heart attack is alive

My gf went to see his GP because he had indigestion and his left arm had pins and needles

Dgf first asked if he was having a heart attack and the GP listened to his heart and said there was nothing wrong with his heart (of course there wasn’t anything wrong with his heart, it was the blood clot that was the problem)

His GP asked him to tell him one symptom only. Told him he would fix him one symptom at a time.

So dgf said he had indigestion. Gp said he needed indigestion pills and sent him on his way with a prescription for some over sized Rennies

Dgf died 6 hours later

There isn't huge amounts of waste in the NHS, not more than you d expect in any other large organisation

🤣🤣🤣

There speaks someone who either works for the NHS and doesn’t see each department and what they do or don’t do

Or someone who hasn’t spent any time in hospital watching what happens

Putting out bags of chemo to just throw them away when the patient comes to use them and to get another bag from the fridge or change the sheets on a bed twice in one day or a consultant who won’t spend a few hundred pounds for a test to see what they are dealing with and then spends a few hundred thousand pounds trying to guess the prognosis.
That is the tip of the iceberg

When you point out to a HCP that it might be wasteful what they are doing they don’t see the waste. They just say it is how we have always done it.

News to me, as well. HMRC have been taking tax and NI off me since 1975, the scamming buggers, and there's me thinking it was (among other things) to fund the NHS. I wonder where it all went 🙄

I looked into National Insurance a while back due to needing to advise colleagues (we were in a pension dispute with our employer).

The government don't actually have to spend it on anything at all. It's basically a giant slush fund.

I am an economist and was surprised. Although hardly shocked.

Me too - since 1971 in my case. And still paying tax. You’d think 52 years would cover my modest healthcare needs.

Agree the waste in the NHS is shocking. From day to day stuff that is what they have always done/where they have always ordered it from to top levels managers approving payments to Stonewall and pay for the manpower dedicated to meeting their scheme that result in discrimination against women, or paying millions for ‘diversity’ managers.

Once again asking about the external management consultants? Are they all from one firm? Or are they from various?

NI is simply another tax. It is not hypothecated for the NHS.

And the vast majority of people have precisely zero understanding that they are net tax beneficiaries over their lifetimes (they utilise more tax funding than they ever paid in). I blame the rather poor educational system in the UK as its downright astonishing how maths is simply not a skill that is promoted in the country.

This is actually one of the main problems with a single-payer system that is "free" at the point of use.

Eventually, care will have to be rationed due to demographics (we are seeing this now).

So I would get used to waiting 12+ months for a hip operation via the NHS if I were you folks. That won't ever be improving now.

There isn't huge amounts of waste in the NHS, not more than you d expect in any other large organisation

Funniest thing I've heard in years! The waste and inefficiency is absolutely colossal. The thing is that the staff have got into the lazy habit of accepting low levels of waste in everything they do. "It's only a few pence", "It's only a few pounds". But multiply it by huge numbers of staff on a daily basis on an hourly basis, and it soon comes to millions. Then add in all the expensive stuff, such as ditched cancer drugs, cancelled operations due to admin errors, etc., and it all mounts up.

@Yalta i’m so sorry about your dgf. Exactly the same happened to a friends dad. Went to the gp for the first time in 30 years with abdominal pain. Was told it was indigestion. Dropped down dead 4 hours later. No apologies, no investigation, coroner wasn’t bothered at all.

Your taxes don't just go to the NHS though. Didn't you use the roads? Weren't you or your children educated in schools? Don't you want relatively safe streets due to policing? Or the fire service to put out your house fire? Or defence to stop Putin invading? Or care for your ageing relatives? No one pays into their "pot" of funding for public services, pensions, etc - if so, the vast majority would be overdrawn as the vast majority of people don't "pay in" anywhere near their share of all the various public services, NHS, pensions, etc.

And in most of those years, the country had a deficit, meaning the tax revenues weren't even covering current spending, the difference, or deficit, basically being borrowed money, which now stands at something like 2.6 trillion pounds and meaning the country is spending more on interest on that debt than it spends on education. We've been living beyond our means for a few decades now, and it's coming back to bite us on the arse!

If you want the NHS to survive in its current form then the pensioners need to start paying in for their very expensive care (that they never paid for)

That was what Blossomtoes and I were responding to - that those of us approaching or already at our golden years 🙄had paid nothing. We have, and in some cases continue to do so. And yes, I'm well aware many of us haven't paid in what we'll take out, whatever our age.

It’s a crass attempt by Tories to try and sway a vote by the greedy and desperate. Of course we can’t have a tax cut with the country in the dire situation it is in! Why are tax cuts being suggested when we have people in an apparent first world country using food banks ffs! And 1 in 3 children living in poverty! Get a grip and please, please, please don’t vote Tory in the next election 🙏🙏🙏

Maybe you should read this rather than make uninformed opinions about me and the NHS ?
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-compare-health-care-systems-other-countries?gclid=CjwKCAiAsIGrBhAAEiwAEzMlC9cTPSDvu8FVpymsspXoqyYFnI8MbvJzBdxAnXy1TRS23yvvefqcnBoCJKUQAvD_BwE

A lot of people are actually worse off with the NIC reductions because of the rise to minimum
Wage but the freeze on income tax. Cutting public services to further privatise seems to be the strategy.

They are not worse off after NIC reductions. After NIC reductions they are better off.

They are not worse off after the raise in minimum wage but freeze on income tax because you don’t pay 100% tax on your income at basic rate (or even at higher rate)

What you mean is they may pay more tax.

We've been living beyond our means for a few decades now, and it's coming back to bite us on the arse!

We haven’t actually. Around a decade and a half.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/balanceofpayments/timeseries/hbop/pnbp

That's balance of payments, i.e. imports versus exports (inc capital etc). It's not debt nor the deficit!

She doesn't understand. The vast majority of people don't.

They just google things without any real knowledge or understanding.

Its a common failing these days.

This shows deficit virtually every year for the past 40 years!

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/10/19/1350656296348/UK-budget-deficit-and-par-008.jpg?width=620&dpr=1&s=none

Says the person who can’t be arsed to even look for facts, just invents them.

Starving it of capital spending is also not the answer.

However it will strengthen the hands of those who say "look how awful it is. We should shovel money into the pockets of offshore tax-dodgers instead."

Did it work for sewage and water companies?

No, they just looted us and whisked the money away leaving the assets crumbling and the country wallowing in excrement in our seas and rivers.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Finews.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fenvironment%2Fuk-sewage-island-isle-wight-locals-sick-home-dumping-ground-2757494%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3gDrFtPwjJrlNiyfjt8p10aEPyZKm34BiPJ9wPCxqMvn7ScfaVyGurKng&h=AT1lS8_1-dDhnBRm9CQpQEswgw0jiHSXLrIP-E7nvSf971HIZ4nyAIJkAM2iyEdY0IBytbG5yQD0f-_5QyN7ngXoUIgRTz5_V541aM7Jsbl98GUqnu72-wZ9-WWn&tn=H-R&c[0]=AT2zKp-X3QaXy18DyyoTrr2jSSwxS5KPp4c4NHzPYXvdEusRBNj2Aifd1MNGyGu1Xm0Zuar_mxmSo3xUBTyja9mQfeiyBV4N3HCIOU1XPMWmv2mu8qMOev16wbRfsBdJTZ742_bxTKhewKxYtr9X-ZE29WSOJd31riIIWY7Tt8NrFP05m-vx-9JKA9s7zxPffXfRmoYrRD4EEeXSnY5q-v4