Pay for GP and A&E visits, says Sajid Javid. We already do!
Sajid Javid: he wants us to pay twice for NHS GP and A&E services.
How strange that a former Health Secretary doesn’t understand how the National Health Service is funded and wants to charge us twice for the same service!
Here’s the story:
Patients should be charged for GP appointments and visits to A&E, Sajid Javid has said, as he called the present model of the NHS “unsustainable”.
The former health secretary said “extending the contributory principle” should be part of radical reforms to tackle growing waiting times.
In an article for The Times, he called for a “grown-up, hard-headed conversation” about revamping the health service, adding that “too often the appreciation for the NHS has become a religious fervour and a barrier to reform”.
Downing Street told the newspaper the prime minister is not “currently” considering the proposals.
That last line is slightly reassuring, at least. Once the principle of paying for NHS services we’ve already funded gets embedded, there will be no reversing the march of commercialisation.
Let’s be clear, though: there is absolutely no reason for anybody to pay for NHS appointments because Javid’s argument is nonsense.
Making people pay won’t stop people from being sick – it will stop the poorest from being treated. And that would defeat the fundamental principle of the NHS: universal healthcare.
Absolutely not under any circumstances. pic.twitter.com/SYkFXE7NPf
— Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) January 21, 2023
If we’re going to oppose Javid’s lunacy, though, we ought at least to propose something else. Here’s Richard Murphy:
There are 367 million GP appointments in the NHS each year. Assuming everyone had to pay (and I bet children and pensioners would not) at £20 a time that would raise £7.3bn in extra revenue.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) January 21, 2023
So, Javid wants to raise £9.1 billion a year by imposing a sickness tax on those wanting to see a doctor. But that’s before exemptions and before the massive cost of actually collecting this money, which can’t be ignored. So, let’s guess it’s £6 billion after exemptions.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) January 21, 2023
I have suggested how to find the £30 billion required to pay for the NHS we need. Half would come from extra taxes paid simply as a result of spending the extra money on the NHS or by making people well enough to work again. In the real world that’s what happens.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) January 21, 2023
Or we could double the rate of capital gains tax and collect maybe £15bn a year. It is absurd that right now this tax, paid almost entirely by the wealthiest, is charged at half the rate of income tax. Wouldn’t that be better than charging the sick?
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) January 21, 2023
And there are other tax options as well on top of which the government could simply run a deficit to pay for this or do QE to fund the NHS as the Tories did for other crises.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) January 21, 2023
We need a debate on NHS funding but crass ideas from Sajid Javid and his like on NHS charging need to be dismissed out of hand when vastly better options from taxing the best off more fairly or from borrowing are available.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) January 21, 2023
A video explanation is here. https://t.co/VJtQT9icQY
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) January 21, 2023
Which would you prefer?
Source: Sajid Javid says patients should be charged for GP and A&E visits to ease waits | ITV News
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Javid’s controversial statement does Two things:
1. Start the debate on Privatisation thus creating distraction and division.
2. Demonstrate how much the Tories desire a Two-Tier NHS, those who pay for high class treatment and those who beg for a basic patch-up, just like in the 50s.
It truly is a sick joke, isn’t it ! Politicians are very determined to destroy all that is/was good about Britain.