The mainstream media used fake maths to scare us about the extra cost of modernising the NHS
The NHS does not need £2,000 from every UK household to survive because the country’s progressive taxation system means poorer people would pay less.
That’s the argument in the Guardian piece quoted below.
The mainstream media outlets that suggested a flat-rate increase in tax of £2,000 per household failed to take account of the fact.
It’s fake news. And scaremongering.
In fact, it doesn’t even address the other possibilities that don’t require any extra taxation at all.
Yet again, the Tories’ complicit news media are doing their work for them – asking us to believe a lie, that the NHS needs us to pay much more in order to survive in its current form.
That supports the Tory narrative that private corporations could provide a more cost-effective service. If they try to suggest that to you, they will be lying.
But the intention is to expose the public only to information that leads us in the direction the Tories want us to go.
That’s why this article is so valuable. It shows us the methodology behind Tory politics.
Knowing that, we can expose this and other attempts at legerdemain.
The IFS calculated its “average” figures by taking the total amount it calculated the NHS would need and dividing it by the number of households in the country. That’s certainly one way of doing it – it’s not wrong per se – but in terms of informing people about the actual impact on their own finances, it’s very misleading. We have progressive taxation in this country: not every household gets an equally sized bill. Could you pay more if the government chose to cover the cost of social care through a bump in income tax? Sure, but for the vast majority of the country it would be a few hundred pounds.
That’s without engaging with the underlying assumption that a bump in income tax is the way the government will choose to go. Some people have argued that, since the last couple of decades have seen wealth accumulate disproportionately at the very top, government should tax wealth rather than income. Alternatively, researchers have shown that health spending is one of the best ways to stimulate the economy, so the government could opt against tax increases in the short term and instead let healthcare spending act as a fiscal stimulus, at least until purchasing power had increased.
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hmmm tax the rich? .. those same rich that were made richer by the nazis and squirrelled it away in a tax haven elsewhere in the world? .. i have a feeling the nazis would not do such a thing. it would be like biting the hand that feeds you. nah they will make it look like the working, and those not able to or just too ill to work, will have to shoulder the burden of a huge tax hike at the low end, while they keep making tax cuts to their wealthy mates who bung them a few million for the party coffers.
did we no pay tax for the nhs
just chuck Branson out and the rest of the beggars who milk the system then the nhs becomes whot its meant to be
Even if this figure was right it would still be cheaper than paying for an American style privatised health service.
Feels like the IFS is also part of the globalists plan in not being impartial and honest in its reporting by ensuring they account for all the issues that apply….just cherry picking the pieces that support the Cons case just makes the IFS another fake mouthpiece and should be ignored and disbanded.
As I have often said, the Tories can find billions for wars and for tax cuts for the wealthy, but nothing for our marvellous NHS which takes care of us all.
Distorted “averages” being used to inform people by the media is nothing new. Every Budget Day (when we had just one in the past!) the newspapers would trot out their analyses of the impact on different income groups. There would be a “low” income family (with an appropriate illustration) then an “average” family (ditto), then a well-off family (etc).
But, invariably, the “average” income family would be shown with earnings WAY above what most people were getting. So the impact of a percentage increase in Income Tax could be shown as stress-inducingly high, when, in fact, most people in the country were genuinely reflected in the “low” income group. And the “well-off ” lot were barely representative of more than 5% of the country at most.
In this way, the impression would be given that the population were much better-off than was really the case, and that they would be more adversely affected by tax increases than was actually the case.
It might not be popular , but it might be a good idea if everybody’s wage rates were widely publicised. THEN we would have a real insight into the effects of policy changes. At the moment, we seem to have to grapple with policy announcements with one hand tied behind our backs.
Raise the cap on N.I. The whole system of collecting it penalises the low paid
Something a lot of people do not know, is that the government creates all the money in circulation through the Bank of England.
The Bank of England actually states itself, that 97% of all the money in circulation was simply printed electronically out of thin air.
What this means of course, instead of issuing this money into the economy as debt, they could spend it directly into the economy, paying directly for all our public services. Such as fully funding the NHS. There is absolutely no need for our government to raise taxation before it spends. The simple truth is where does that money come from in the first place?? The government has to create it in order to pay the tax.
We found £375 billion to bail out the Banks, and £1 billion as a bribe to DUP, but when it comes to the NHS, suddenly we are broke.
Our country can never ever go broke, and this government knows it, which is why they shake the Money Tree when it suits them, but not to benefit the people of this country.