When you say most pay in a lot more than they get out, is that right? Most NHS spend occurs in a persons last year of life. The government is running a deficit which means tax revenues are less than overall expenditure. Most tax is paid by a relatively small proportion of people and so I am not sure it is correct to say most people pay in a lot more than they get out.

Would you? The reality of that is that the older you get the more expensive it would become to the stage where it would be costing tens of thousands of pounds per annum in your retirement. Not only that, should you get a chronic condition they would not insure you.

The NHS is a great benefit to the UK economy. Without it businesses would be funding health insurance costs making our businesses less competitive. We already have higher property costs than most other places (other than Japan) so an extra burden would be very dangerous to our competitiveness,

Some people will pay in more over their lifetime than what they receive in direct care/treatment etc. but that rightly goes toward treating those who fall ill. But private insurance cover does too.

And most private insurance providers in the UK don't cover everything, they certainly don't cover existing conditions and the vast majority still require the services of the NHS or their premiums would be a lot higher.

IIRC someone on the average wage pays roughly £900 a year through their tax and NI toward the NHS.
The best BUPA cover available, for a fit, healthy, non-smoker with no pre-existing conditions of any kind costs £89 per month (£1,068 per year) and doesn't cover everything the NHS does. Most notably A&E, maternity and urgent surgical procedures.

So Employers NI is not funding some health costs? and these costs don't impact competitiveness

The tax take covers all sorts of things. Employers NI was just a convenient thing to hike up as a stealth tax to keep the headline income tax rate low. As the previous poster said, private insurance premiums would far outweigh the tax costs of the NHS if you could find comprehensive insurance cover. The only people a truly private medical insurance system would suit would be the mega-wealthy who could afford to pay for their medical care without resort to insurance. Oh, and the investors and executives in medical insurers.

The USA spends a lot more on healthcare than here despite enormous numbers of people having no decent care. A sick system.

All NI receipts('ees and 'ers) total c. £107bn pa. Pensions and NHS (the two things you may perceive them as funding?) account for over £264 bn of government spending pa. So the "some" funding you mention is, like I said, cheap for business.

The larger American companies are considered amongst the best in the world to work for - paying health premiums doesn't appear to impact their attractiveness to employees or business competitiveness.

If companies here had to pay health premiums then surely they would not have to pay as high employers NI?

I work for a large American company and when I was over there a few years back I walked into the office on my first day there to find various people being escorted out if having been made redundant that morning (no consultation period over there....).

One of them was an ex-pat friend of mine from the UK and when we met up later in the bar he told us one of the terms of his exit package was he would be allowed to keep his company health insurance for 12 months[i if he met a premium of $1000 a month[/i. So he is not earning and yet to keep the same level of cover he had through his work he'd have to find $1000 a month.

The alternative of not paying the premium is you lose the health insurance there and then and so you have to pay for literally every medical expense in full.

Kids need to see the doctor? Pay up.

Dentist? Pay up without any capped cost of treatment.

Need to go into hospital? Consider a second mortgage on the house if you can get one. Or bankruptcy.

[uWhat you don't seem to realise is once you stop paying the premiums your private health cover vanishes.[/u

Are you so confident you won't suffer any misfortune that would deny you your private medical cover due to the inability to pay the premiums?

Even in-work you had better be very good at reading the small print to find out just how long and for how much you are covered for certain illnesses.

Whereas here, with the NHS, it doesn't matter if you are in work or are unemployed or whatever. You have no worries about medical costs at all.

And you are in favour of private health insurance?

Are you completely out of your mind?

The US no longer has that many good employers for life. That were casualisation of the work-force comes from. As I said above employers NI contributions go nowhere near the cost of the health care costs in the UK so in effect "good" employers who would otherwise provide good health insurance are getting it on the cheap.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/yo ... ng-4358320 Oh my days, that tickled me

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/yo ... ng-4358320 Oh my days, that tickled me

UKIP is now complaining that Theresa May's "anti-extremism pledge" [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10/01/theresa-may-extremism-laws_n_5912012.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics&ir=UK+Politics"could shut the party down"[/url

It could be the end of the SWP!

That happened about 20 years ago

Surprised there isn't a thread for Camoron's 'greatest living Yorkshireman' praise of William Hague.

Well from the same article:

[i"That's prompted fears the laws could be used on non-violent political groups and the political enemies of those in power.

Critics said the powers were draconian and mocked the notion of banning those who are not proven to have broken the law, while human rights Liberty said the powers were "worthy of a caliphate".[/i

They (liberty) have a very valid point in my view. These proposals would have been just the sort of laws the Nazi's and any other bunch of fascists would enact under the pretence given by May.

David Davies is right as well. Can't stand the man's politics he so far right economically it is untrue but on this he is correct.

The fact UKIP have said they could be banned and that this may be viewed as highly unlikely so its another joke of a comment from them is neither here nor there.

I'd expect some sort of retort from Cleggy and the Last of the Summer Wine cast when the LimpDems conference starts.

Does anyone have any idea which village hall they're holding it in this year?

You mean like the ID cards Nazis brought in? Thank Christ this country doesn't have fascists who'd try and do that...oh. Just, like the Nazi ones had "J" for Jew the Labour ones, voted for by their fascist supporters, could have "T" for Token.

WAAHHHHHH...Tories

The one where they've lost their idiot - Cleggers will be looking for the job in May.

Presumably by this line of thinking almost every country in Europe plus the United States are also run by fascist's ?

The problem with the much-trumpeted ID card scheme was it was feted as "helping make us safe from terrorists", despite the fact that it was an unnecessary burden on public resource. Thankfully Alan Johnson realised the flaws in Blunkett's plan and scrapped the idea.

We already have a number of ID schemes in place:

NHS Number, issued at birth

NI Number, issued when you start work

Passport Number, issued when you are granted a passport

Driver Number, issued when you get a licence

The above plus foreign national ID cards would cover about 99.99% of the population, making an ID superfluous.

The ID card scheme and the "Snooper's Charter" are jsut more ways of the state exercising control over us, when it should be the other way round. Tory governments have always appeared keen on individual responsibility and a "small state", so it does seem a little perverse for them to be wanting the facility to pry whenever they feel like it.

Wait until you see the proposed dog's breakfast of a British Bill of Rights.

Give him the Town Hall keys and a mop and bucket, he might make a decent janitor.

Ed's speech was a disaster. By forgetting to mention the economy and deficit he has destroyed his party's chances. Cameron has highlighted this and by again using 2010's stories re the EU / NHS has come out of the conference season with an opinion poll lead. Even now, as I have said over and over again, Labour should ditch Ed. He is nothing but a liability to Labour. He has no credibility. Interestingly though, a Times article today (presumably from a pro-European journalist) said the real danger to the UK economy is Dave with his EU referendum proposal rather than useless Ed who he reckons couldn't do as much damage with his daft ideas.

The papers deserted Milliband several months ago when he didn't step as far to the right as the Tories are about to leave - to go even further to the right. Claiming Labour somehow had a chance when more attention is currently going to UKIP is a bit silly.

With the Lib Dems finished for the foreseeable future it's now only about how far UKIP can drag the Tories in their direction.

Many friends assure me UKIP will stumble this time. But I think it was pretty clear last election when a ton of money began flowing into their coffers that the target was always this election.

Of course they won't win. But they don't need to in order for their allies in the Tory party to turn to starboard. This country is full of idiots who will jump up and down like a performing monkey when Big Business presses a button to run another argument about [i"Fuzzy Wuzzies taking our jobs!"[/i

The right wing media is a joke. The "left" wing media is everything George Orwell rightly despised.

And I thought I was living in the country I was born in...

The same powers are being rolled out in just about every major Western state. One might even suggest greater powers are at work than states.