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.

When I started work the basic rate of income tax was 33% and NI was 9% - total 42%. Anyone starting work in January will be paying 29%. 🤷‍♀️

Wrong.

http://taxhistory.co.uk/National%20Insurance%20rates.htm

Your were talking about NI, now you've changed your mind and talking about IT as well! What about all the other taxes that were lower back then, i.e. VAT at only 8%, no insurance premium tax, much lower fuel taxes, no VAT on domestic power, no landfill taxes, lower council taxes, etc., etc., etc., You can't keep swapping and changing what you're talking about, without looking at the whole picture - being selective when it suits and not when it doesn't is a bit hypocritical.

The following graph shows a broader picture of taxes as a % of GDP which shows total tax revenue where lower than today throughout the 90s, and noughties and similar in total to the end of the 80s! Presumably that's the timescale you're talking about!!

https://images.app.goo.gl/s9rj5X2yNaGTSZv29

I haven’t changed my mind at all. We were talking about the proportion of income people have paid in tax. Any comment on your erroneous assertion about the historic level of NI? No, thought not. Surely introducing a whole range of regressive, discretionary taxes into the equation is “being selective when it suits and not when it doesn't”, isn’t it?

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

My assertion wasn't wrong at all, which your link actually proves I'm right. NIC rates are higher now than they used to be 10-15 years ago!!

If you take into account the lowest rate, it’s now 0%. It was 2%. Having said that, it was 9% for years, then 10%, only recently rising to 11%. Certainly not enough difference to be the gotcha you seem to think.

There is only one person on this thread obsessed with gotchas and it’s not @Badbadbunny

Badbadbunny

I was the one talking about chucking the bags of Chemo in the bin.

Those of you who are arguing over who has paid the most in NI. I think you are arguing over pennies compared to the waste the NHS itself is responsible for.

This is from a report on Chemo drug “optimisation”

Chemotherapy is the single biggest spend within NHS England’s Specialised Commissioning, accounting for an estimated £1.4 billion a year – almost a tenth of the entire central budget.
The cost of drugs represents some 80% of this spend and is growing rapidly, with annual increases of around 8% due to rising demand and higher charges from drug companies.
NHS England now hopes to reduce variation and wastage in chemotherapy by implementing a national system of ‘dose banding’, where patients will receive optimised doses of drugs, rather than ones which are individually calculated

Seems like they haven’t a clue what is going on. They aren’t going to stop throwing away bags of chemo and save themselves £560 million per year. The report suggests they are just going to restrict the amount of chemo patients get given

What makes no sense is that these bags of chemo can’t be used on anyone else but they think if they don’t inject it into a patient that saves money

If you really can’t see how stupid this sounds then no wonder the NHS is on its knees.

I despair that I wouldn’t get a job sorting out the NHS because I don’t have the qualifications
However those with the qualifications don’t seem to have a clue what is going on

*BIossomtoes · Yesterday 17:57

If you take into account the lowest rate, it’s now 0%. It was 2%. Having said that, it was 9% for years, then 10%, only recently rising to 11%. Certainly not enough difference to be the gotcha you seem to think*

Technically it isn’t 2% on your total salary. It is 12% on your salary when earning between £1,048.01 to £4,189 a month and only 2% for every £ over £4189 per month you earn

NI rates vary, and I am not up to date. When I was in business on my own, I used the company to pay spare earnings into my pension as Employer Contributions. Not only is there no Employee NI on them, and no tax, there is no Employer NI either. It used to be about 12% IIRC. So fantastic value.

If you don't have your own company, "Salary Sacrifice" can sometimes be agreed, or you may be able to get Payroll to put bonuses or other odd earnings into your pension. I do realise that many people are not lucky enough to have this option. It tends to be more common among well-paid people, which I think is not fair.

P.S.

I see from the latest tables that Employer's NI varies, but can be 13.8%.

The state of the NHS, education, social housing, public services in general etc is an ideological choice made by those in government. We have the resources to fix it, but not the will.

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2023/nov/27/uk-spends-more-financing-inequality-in-favour-of-rich-than-rest-of-europe-report-finds

"When compared with the top five most equal countries, however, inequality costs the UK £128.4bn a year in damage to the economy, communities and individuals.
Fixing the NHS crisis, including funding the maintenance backlog, hiring more staff and increasing wages, would cost about £66.7bn over 15 years."

“Inequality has made the UK more unhealthy, unhappy and unsafe than our more equal peers,” said Priya Sahni-Nicholas, the co-executive director of the trust. “It is also causing huge damage to our economy: we have shorter healthy working lives, poorer education systems, more crime and less happy societies.”

The report on dose banding you quote was from 2016, it goes on to say that it has in some Hospitals halved chemo drug waste.

So i think saying those with the qualifications don't have a clue either is unfair.

Unfortunately, once drugs have been assigned to a patient, its not safe or even cost effective to then re administer to another patient.

The NHS is on its knees because it is, per head of population, under funded, has been for decades.

And yes, wealthy pensioners of course should pay NI, why on earth do think they should be exempt?

Or is it only someone else who should pay for the NHS ?

Yes, so why isn't there more effort to stop them being issued too early or in wrong amounts etc in the first place. We all know that they can't be reused if they can't be guaranteed to have been stored correctly. Surely it's not difficult to change systems so that they're only issued within a short time of the patient arriving, or only the correct quantity required is issued? It's not rocket science.

My OH is on long term chemo drugs. Every month he gets issued 3 very expensive pills, but he only takes 2 - the oncologist knows he only takes 2, but still keeps prescribing 3. It's not a pack of 3, they're individual packs so the oncologist could just prescribe 2, yet, for 3 years now, she's prescribed 3 and OH has a the extras in a cupboard! Along with lots of other drugs he never takes but keeps getting prescribed. The official price of the pill per the NHS website is over £1k, so even with NHS discounts, it's going to cost several hundred pounds per pill. All gathering dust in a cupboard! OH has mentioned this to the oncologist many times, but she glibly bats it away saying she's got the budget for "full" package of tablets so it doesn't save "her" anything if she doesn't prescribe them! Total madness!!

*jasflowers

Unfortunately, once drugs have been assigned to a patient, its not safe or even cost effective to then re administer to another patient*

You miss the bit where the chemotherapy nurse goes in to work in the morning and sets out the trays for all the patients that day. Each tray is labelled with the patients name and on that tray has the needles, box of antiseptic wipes etc and the bag of chemo for that patient. All the things needed to administer chemo

When the patient comes in and the nurse will put that patients tray on a trolley and wheel it over to them.

The nurse then picks up the bag of chemo from the tray and throws it in the bin
Because chemo needs to be kept chilled and in the fridge before using

The report on dose banding you quote was from 2016, it goes on to say that it has in some Hospitals halved chemo drug waste

Maybe they have cut their chemo expense by half in those hospitals because they now keep all chemo in the fridge and only bring it out when they administer it to patients and don’t put bags of chemo out on trays first thing in the morning and chuck it in the bin when the patient arrives

How much are they spending on people in those hospitals to have someone tell them they are wasting money throwing chemo in the bin.
It should be obvious to those throwing the bags in the bin but when you point it out the response is “this is the way we have always done it”