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.

You never post "facts".

Just googled articles which you clearly do not understand.

Pointless to engage with you.

I don’t make stuff up. You do. Please feel free not to engage with me but when you post bollocks like 80% of health spending is on over 55s I shall correct you.

jasflowers · Yesterday 17:25

*Yalta · Yesterday 12:58

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*

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

The question is did you actually read it.

It was about money spent compared to other countries not about waste.

Pretty much we don’t spend a lot compared to other countries but apart from having some sort of free health care so people don’t have to get a bill when ill. It does infer it is a bit lacking

If you had read it you would see it mentioned two of the examples I had personal experience of.

Not enough MRIs done. It says that there aren’t enough MRI machines (I would argue there are it’s just that they might be in the private sector and I can’t see why the NHS wouldn’t pay to use them even at the rate they charge private patients)

The lack of bed space (which could be because the people taking up the beds didn’t need to be there for the amount of time they were if the GP had sent them for tests and got stuff sorted at the first appointment rather than stalling till you have a people spending days/ weeks/months more in hospital than they needed)

What isn’t mentioned is the private sector that people have to turn to because the NHS decides you aren’t in the correct postcode, or you need the pain to stop

@Yalta

Pretty much we don’t spend a lot compared to other countries

Then you'd think staff would make more of an effort not to waste the smaller amount of spending that they do get, wouldn't you?

Take MRIs, my OH had 4 attempts to have a scan, the first 3 appointments were wasted because of NHS inefficiency, i.e. first time the consultant had put him down for a dye, even though it was written all over his notes that he was allergic, so it should have been dye-free. MRI operator wouldn't do it without dye as that's what was written on the system. Second attempt, it had been put down as without dye, but some muppet had put it down as a lower back scan when it should have been a neck scan, and again, operator wouldn't do it because it wasn't what was on his system. Third attempt, they got the right scan, but it had been put down as with dye again, so that was another wasted appointment. So for just one person, that was three wasted appointments. It's no wonder there's such a backlog when admin cock ups cause so many wasted appointments.

Re the about poster about wasted chemo drugs. My OH said exactly the same thing. These are expensive but NHS staff just glibly chuck them out as if they cost pennies, and don't seem to have any interest in avoiding similar waste in future. It's like water off a duck's back to them. They don't seem to care about money, waste and inefficiency.

Total revenue from national insurance contributions this year is about £180 billion. NHS budget this year is about £172 billion. Everyone would have to pay a lot more contributions to make a significant improvement to NHS services.

"Everyone" being the key point, and that includes well off pensioners, regardless of how much they think they've contributed over their working lives!!

Well off pensioners must have contributed a lot. They didn’t get those gold plated pensions from working for minimum wage, did they?

It doesn't work like that.

Some people used to get final-salary scheme pensions, and often a degree of index linking. It used to be said that public sector jobs had poor pay but good pensions.

Not all these people have died yet.

It doesn't work like that.

It kind of does.

A decent final salary pension is dependent on a decent final salary. Nobody who has one of those pensions will have been earning peanuts, ergo they will have been paying correspondingly high levels of tax and NI.

Nobody can get a final salary pension if they aren't in a final salary pension scheme. Few people now are. MPs and Ministers, of course, probably get the most generous pension scheme in the country.

However it is worth noting that contributions to a pension scheme are free of income tax, and usually also free of both employer's and employee's National Insurance. So people with good pensions are likely to have chipped in a bit less by saving on tax and NI. This is recognised as a valuable benefit.

So people with good pensions are likely to have chipped in a bit less by saving on tax and NI. This is recognised as a valuable benefit.

It’s not a benefit though. You don’t pay tax on your contributions but you pay the tax when you collect your pension. And it applies to all occupational pensions.

But you never pay NI on it.

The other benefit of deferring your income is that, in most cases, taxable income is lower in retirement.

So you might, for example, have saved 40% tax plus NI when contributing

And pay 20% tax and zero NI when drawing.

Which is a big benefit.

NI is paid on private pension contributions.

https://www.drewberryinsurance.co.uk/pensions-advice/faqs/do-i-pay-national-insurance-on-my-pension-contributions#

Not if it's salary sacrifice. If, say, you're due a discretionary bonus of £10k, you can opt for it to be paid directly to the pension scheme, tax and NIC free. It's only when it's paid out of your wages that you pay NIC, that's because you get tax relief on the deduction, but there's no corresponding NIC relief. Lots of people "negotiate" a lower gross pay and higher pension contributions - because the pensions never go near your payslip, they're tax and NIC free.

It's proportional as to what "decent" means!

Take your NHS worker on lowest band £22k. For those who are retired, i.e. under the more generous older schemes, they'd get 2/3 final salary if they'd worked in the NHS for the requisite number of years. Say, they'd been 0.5 part time most of the time. 2/3rds of £22k at 0.5 hours is roughly a pension of just under £8k per year. Add in state pension, of, say, £10k, their total income in retirement is £20k! Not bad when they only earned £11/12k when they were working!! Whatever mental gymnastics you try to perform, that's one hell of a "decent" pension, i.e. more than they earned when they worked! That's the reality of the over-generous gold plated DB pension schemes. And don't get me started on the ones who took promotions in the last few years of working life - timed right to get 2/3rds of a much higher salary than they were on for most of their working life. Firemen were notorious for it - rode the pumps as junior offices for most of the time as they loved the hands on work, then only applied for promotions to senior officer level for the last few years, doing admin, desk work, management work etc - that they hated, but it was the key to a much enhanced pension for their retirement years - often higher than their wage level when they were actually working as hands on firemen. That's pretty "decent" too, even if it's not ultra high income - it's "decent" compared to their income when working! You can't possibly justify such people paying less tax in retirement than they were when working, despite higher or similar incomes, because of the stupid NIC rules!

Lots of people "negotiate" a lower gross pay and higher pension contributions - because the pensions never go near your payslip, they're tax and NIC free.

So now we're assuming all pensioners were tax evaders when they worked, are we?

You can stay that nowadays on pensioners net. You missed the memo. They paid in all their lives don’t ya know 🥱

How many years have you paid in @Princessandthepea0?

Years. On 6 figures - guaranteed I’m funding all those pensioners who’ve not paid enough.

The government isn’t losing out, they will get way more tax due to high wage increases without a change in the tax brackets. Given inflation this is actually a tax increase. The cut will cost way less than the increased amount they receive but makes people think they are paying less.

How many years? I’m at 52 and counting. Guaranteed most pensioners have paid considerably more than you when several decades are counted up and adjusted for inflation.

And? We already know. You mention it every thread. I can guarantee you - they haven’t.

You can guarantee nothing.

Highly unlikely when NIC rates were historically lower than they've been in the last 10-15 years or so.