(not satire unfortunately – it’s the UK today!)
The Tory/Lib Dem government liked to bang on all the time about the need for fiscal responsibility.
But how fiscally responsible was it for the coalition to subsidise big banks with £37.7bn of taxpayers’ money every year while at the same time insisting it had to make £20bn of cuts to the NHS to balance the budget?
Is it only me doing the maths here?
.
Who would you prefer your tax money to go to – bankers or nurses?
Please feel free to comment and please share. Thanks.
Pride's Purge 
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The £20 billion savings/cuts is a policy from the last Labour government which the coalition inherited.
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Clive – No it’s not. It’s the so-called ‘Nicholson Challenge’ – from 2011: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholson_challenge
Nice try.
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Reblogged this on Ben Gwalchmai.
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NURSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nurses 100% nurses.
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its wasn’t labour they spent on the nhs its this bunch who are lieing to us all saying the nhsisnt working whot they didn’t tell you underfunded it ready for the sell off to yanky firms you should now one itsready to sell that insurance policy to protect you whilst in hospital but forget to say they be running them ops
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No it was an Andy Burnham policy which if you google it you will find it.. He announced it in September 2009. Health service cost inflation is well known to be above normal inflation and represents a difficult issue for all parties. Nicholson first announced his challenge in 2009 which Andy Burnham agreed with and adopted. Tom if you had read the Wikipedia entry to the end you would know this. Sadly an example of only researching stuff to back up your preconceived ideas or just lazy inaccurate journalism.
[Clive – read it again. It was agreed by Burnham but not adopted until 2011. Although why which party started it is relevant I don’t know. And I’m not a journalist. How very dare you!] -Tom
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Reblogged this on Vox Political.
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Andyv Burnham would have implemented the £20bn savings/cuts if Labour had won the election , he obviously didn’t do it just before an election. The point is both parties would have attempted major cost savings.
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It doesn’t matter who started it, what matters is how many of us will fight to end the political war on the NHS. Bevan thought the introduction of prescription charges was the beginning of the end. John Major was the first to introduce PFI (as a way of exceeding budgets whilst keeping it off the government’s balance sheet). In fact there hasn’t seriously been a government of any colour who has had the nerve to stand up to the Financial Powers That Be over the NHS since that wonderful post war Labour Government that created it (and even they buckled to the banks and the markets over some quite important issues). Our public services have been regarded as an opportunity to make profit for the private sector that is being robbed from them for the last 65 years. There have been endless attempts to undermine its principles. The question of ‘eligibility’ of foreigners/holidaymakers has been brought up time and time again. So has the cost of ‘an ageing population’. And nurses and doctors have always been held up to scrutiny for having the temerity to expect payment for their ‘vocation’. What?? Love your job AND get paid?
This is what you expect when a whacking great, wonderful, totally unexpectedly and unashamedly socialist organisation like the NHS sits at the heart of a capitalist economy like ours.
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I’m afraid the ageing population is a fact and without cost savings the NHS will be unaffordable unless with we have high economic growth to match NHS COST GROWTH. When the post war Labour government created it, it was a small proportion of GDP, and easily affordable as it provided only very basic health care compared with now. All western countries have the same cost problem with health care irrespective of the type of government they have.
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I’m an old person, Clive, I don’t need to get either my economic or my political history from wiki. How much smaller a proportion of GDP do you think it was? How does the cost of the health service as a proportion of GDP reduce as a result of privatisation? (Ps, I’ll give you a clue, the cost of the NHS does not reduce as a proportion of GDP just because some of it is projected to be paid from private rather than public funds) What have been the greatest changes in actual cost assigned to the NHS since its inception?
I’m not sleeping, as I should be, so I’ll give you some food for thought:
The cost of creating the NHS was immense. it was created against a background of the phenomenal costs of rebuilding the country’s infrastructure after WWII. It wasn’t created because it was ‘easily affordable’. With the National Debt at 215% of GDP it certainly wasn’t. It was created because it was right, whatever the cost.
In the 1960s a raft of health services were transferred from local authority to NHS budgets. These included things like school and district nurses, and mass vaccination programmes. This appeared to ‘increase’ the cost of the NHS, but was really a transfer of funds from one area of public responsibility to another.
When John Major introduced PFI in 1992 it helped the public accounts to look better in theory, but really just performed another set of bookkeeping exercises. This one had rather more serious consequences though. Instead of being a capital cost the capital and the building programmes were sourced through private companies (usually the same group of companies for both) and the hospitals had to pay from their revenue accounts for what were effectively mortgage contracts with tied-in maintenance contracts – and variable interest rates. Now you may not remember what grim old institutional horrors many old hospitals used to be and there is no doubt that the investment led to improved comfort. However it was also true that previously staffing ratios came far above building costs in terms of priority. Interest rates on PFI are spiralling through the roof and these contracts take precedence over patient care. These costs are paid through public funds – which are being cut. Bricks and mortar and maintenance are taking an unprecedented chunk out of the health service. And these are the deals which are using the money which is being blamed on immigrants ‘health tourism’ and the elderly.
And then of course we have reorganisation and the costs associated with tendering and outsourcing contracts and legal fees …all of which have quadrupled the NHS administration costs and general overheads without adding one iota of value to patient care.
Of course we also have more expensive equipment and treatments, but with increasing privatisation those treatments will only get more expensive. There will be fewer services available to fewer people at greater cost.
All Western countries now have the same cost problem with health care because they all believe the same ludicrous mantra that the private sector is cheaper, more efficient and better managed than the public sector. It isn’t.
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Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog.
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Reblogged on Jay’s Journal.
My vote would be for the nurses every time, they are a priority the bankers are not!
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Pingback: Coalition cuts NHS by £20bn – but subsidises banks with £37.7bn every year | Jay's Journal
Thank you, lallybag for your amazing wisdom and putting the spin to bed. For good, I hope as people wake up and see the truth.
2014 – the people’s year. Please support The People’s Voice for the real news and not the spin.
Love
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Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
Please make your choice and make your feelings known to your MP. Happy New Year – may 2014 be the people’s year!!!!
Much love.
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I was born in 1945 and remember a time of much lower life expectancy and a very limited range of treatments available compared with now.
All the experts agree that the prime reason for the increase in health provision costs is the advances in the scope of health treatments available and there are numerous academic papers which show this. This is a fact and not in dispute by any of the experts in the field.
In Western Europe most counties have a NHS with some services out sourced.This is done to reduce costs and if it didn’t it wouldn’t be done. Overall health spending is a matter of government policy.
In the USA health care costs as a percentage of GDP are as much as double those in Europe. Their system is essentially a private one with little or no control over costs such that health care providers, hospitals, doctors charge what they like and there is no or little competition on price. No Western European country will ever go for such a system as they can see it would be disaster from observing the USA.
The private sector is more efficient and lower cost than the public one when there is true competition between private providers. Monopolies both private and public tend to be inefficient.
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“The private sector is more efficient and lower cost than the public one when there is true competition between private providers.”
Tosh. Before the Tories started demolishing the NHS ie 3 years ago, it was judged to be the second most cost-effective in the world.
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PS here’s a link http://shr.sagepub.com/content/2/7/60.abstract and http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most-efficient-health-services THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY! How dare they lie to the public in order to get their totally self-serving policies through. They should be imprisoned – for life – before their policies kill anyone else.
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Terri L my statement was a general one about the private sector and competition and is undoubtedly true in most but not all organisations. The fact that the UK NHS is one of most cost effective inthe world doesn’t change this. If you read all of my blog you would see that I am not in favour of privatising the NHS.
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Terri L they are not lying, all organisations these days continually try to achieve efficiencies whether in the public or private sector. So even though our NHS is one of the most efficient that’s not a reason for not seeking further improvements. A Labour government would do similar things.
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Reblogged this on seachranaidhe1.
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It is a fascinating fact, Clive, that many of our University Professors in the fields of Law, of Economics, Social Sciences and Health, experts in management from the NHS, GPs and Hospital Consultants would broadly agree with the facts as I have presented them. They will also give solid international data comparisons to show the NHS is a high performer at very low cost. They support the principle of an NHS which is equitable, universal, accessible, and provides a service based on need and not ability to pay, funded from general taxation (NOT National Insurance) and free at the point of delivery. And they know that full public provision is the only cost efficient way of providing a truly nationwide service with those criteria.
You say: “All the experts agree that the prime reason for the increase in health provision costs is the advances in the scope of health treatments available and there are numerous academic papers which show this. This is a fact and not in dispute by any of the experts in the field.” Well, the simple fact is that it is in dispute. By many experts in the field. (Look up Alyson Pollock on the subject, for starters) To begin with one of the greatest costs to the NHS is staff and associated bed care. This has fallen dramatically over the years, as advances in care post-op often mean that old style very costly hospital stays of up to 2 weeks post-op have been reduced to 2 or 3 days on average and even to day surgery. Similarly local anaesthetic has replaced general in many cases which also aid speedier recovery. GP clinics can now also deal with minor issues that would previously have been cared for in hospitals. All this reduces cost.
And I am truly at loss to explain your statement about ‘true competition between private providers’ being more efficient and lower cost. How could you substantiate such a claim? I find it bizarre that I keep coming across this argument that the only thing wrong with capitalism is that it’s the wrong kind of capitalism. How would you know? When have you ever seen it work to the benefit of the population as a whole rather than the top few percent, other than in your imagination? And do you seriously think that a series of small (as opposed to large corporate) health providers could compete with the economies of scale a truly publicly provided NHS can command? Or provide seriously large scale epidemiological studies which benefit the health service itself, rather than the profit margins of private business? Or deal swiftly with epidemics and pandemics?
And at the end of the day the decisions made by government are political. How much they spend and what they spend it on are choices governed by ideology. Economics is a political science which is a tool of those ideologies. It isn’t ‘common sense’ or an inflexible rule of law. The administration and good governance of public sector services are actually separate issues from the prevailing political wind and the budgetary decisions which affect them. And it is this government’s zealotry, in the face of solid evidence as to their poor judgement on the matter, to transfer the taxpayers’ funds from the public purse to the offshore tax havens of private profiteer that is damaging the NHS. So unless you are seriously wealthy, Clive, I’d start campaigning for them to stop before it’s too late. Do a proper check on which services are already being removed from NHS public provision in certain areas and being made private only. Because you are going to need health insurance sooner rather than later if they carry on. And I can promise you that, despite the TV ads, it really doesn’t cost ‘just’ £7.50 a month.
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Happy New Year to you, too. Keep up the fight! X
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What does all this to-ing and fro-ing about history and why the NHS costs more, matter? If the fact is that the government is cutting 20 billion off the NHS budget, but subsidises the banks each year by 37 million, aren’t you guys having the wrong argument?? Doesn’t that fact just speak for itself, and shouldn’t it strike EVERYONE as a little bit unfair?
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NOT A GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY TO THE BANKS AFTER ALL
The source of the £37.7 bn subsidy story is a think tank , New Economics and it turns out its not a government subsidy at all. According to New Economics the big banks are regarded as too big to fail by the government and would be bailed out again if there was another financial crisis. Because of this the financial markets regard big banks as low risk compared with smaller banks and lend them money at lower rates of interest than for smaller banks. New Economics estimates the big banks save £37.7 bn a year because of this.
So government does not subsidise banks to the tune of £37.7bn a year. The large saving is an unintended consequence of the too big to fail policy and does not come from government spending. So Tom your headline was a bit misleading and in fact is not true,however it made an eye catching headline which is what journalists prefer rather than facts, even though you deny you are a journalist.
Despite the headline New Economics do make some interesting points about the UK banking sector.
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So you don’t understand the administration of large and complex public bodies, don’t understand macro-economic theory, don’t understand how politics work and now you don’t understand the New Economics Foundation’s explanation of how the creation of money by private banks benefits the banks at an actual annual loss to the economy (an effective subsidy, not one we ‘might make’ at some unspecified future date). Bow out gracefully, Clive.
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I merely paraphrased New Economics article. Its a shame that when faced with a differing view to yours you resort to insults and seem to deliberately misrepresent my views. For example I never said NHS cost as proportion of GDP would decrease if certain services were outsourced.
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By logical thought processes, yes you did. I quote ‘without cost savings the NHS will be unaffordable unless with we have high economic growth to match NHS COST GROWTH. When the post war Labour government created it, it was a small proportion of GDP, and easily affordable as it provided only very basic health care compared with now.’ You then go on consistently making unfavourable comparisons between the private sector and the public sector in terms of cost savings and efficiency, when the issue at hand is the privatisation of the NHS. Quod erat demonstrandum, I think.
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Jane, history matters because a lot of people are oblivious to the importance of the NHS as a public service funded from general taxation. There are many who think it doesn’t matter who provides the service as long as it is free at the point of delivery, but it does. There are also many in and out of government who believe (in no particular order): that the private sector is more efficient and cost effective than the public; that the ageing population/health tourism is rendering the service unaffordable in its current form; that the NHS used to be affordable but is too expensive because of doctors’s pay; that GPs refusal to work out of hours (not true) has crippled the system; that the failings and near murderous activities of hospitals demand a change of ownership to ‘put things right’.
Tom’s blog highlights the hypocrisy and warped agenda of this government, but people still need lots of facts to counter the anti-NHS propaganda. And in answer to your question about whether we’re having the wrong argument, because it should strike everyone as unfair, well…no…most people who read Tom’s blog are fighting the same fight, but Clive isn’t. He is in agreement with the government that the NHS needs to have its budget cut to slim it down because it is ‘unaffordable’. This message is so powerfully put across that you will even hear supporters of the NHS say ‘but, of course we need to make cost savings…’ without challenging WHAT it is the costs so much. ‘Zombie statistics’ occupy so much conversation about the NHS now that they just have to be knocked on the head as hard and as often as possible.
And if the banks had been allowed to collapse then many people, given a clear choice, would have opted for their own personal bank accounts to be rescued and to hell with the NHS, because we have a short term, selfish, greedy attitude to personal gain. I WISH it would strike everyone as unfair, but it just doesn’t. *very sad sigh*
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As usual you are misrepresenting my views and have actually said I believe that the NHS should have its budget cut because it is unaffordable in your blog to Jane. I was merely suggesting cost savings are necessary to avoid it becoming unaffordable. All big organisations both private and public continually try to achieve efficiencies that’s normal.
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