Work out the sums, Alan.
- Do all people pay the same NI contributions? No.
- Do employers pay equal amounts for each employee? No.
- Does each user of NHS cost it the same at any point in time or over their lifetime? No.
OK. So let's move to a system where everybody pays the same NI contribution. Would that be based on minimum wage or national average wage or some other number? Same thing for employer's contributions. Neither would be based on top salary earners, would it?
Clearly equal contribution per head would never work unless funding going into the NHS were drastically cut back.
So inevitably, there are net users and net contributors into this.
I see putting money into healthcare provision as an investment for the future. That could be by state run taxation or private insurance or a combination of the two. It's exactly the same as if I buy government bonds or invest on the stock market as an investment to provide a return for retirement.
If I see an investment that is performing badly, I can continue with it or cut it. Likewise if I have a choice of funding vehicles for healthcare.
To be clear, I am not at all opposed to arrangements which play the numbers game (i.e. insurance can be described as a complex bookie's operation). I am also not opposed to the notion that people with the means to do so should, to a reasonable extent, effectively subsidise those without. That is what a civilised country should be about.
Where it is going horribly wrong is that I am forced to contribute into a badly managed government arrangement for provision of healthcare and not given either the choice to shop elsewhere or to sack the incompetent trustees of it.
For something as important as this, accountability should be of the highest order and way beyond what would be expected of an investment fund manager. It isn't there. The service being paid for through the nose is not being delivered and those responsible should lose their jobs. It is as stark and as simple as that.
