The inevitable consequences of NHS crises are made clear:
British households will need to pay an extra £2,000 a year in tax to help the NHS cope with the demands of an ageing population, according to a new report that highlights the unprecedented financial pressures on the health system.
Two thinktanks – the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Health Foundation – have said there can be no alternative to higher taxation if there are to be even modest improvements to care over the next 15 years, adding that demands on the health service will continue to rise.
This will take place against an expected growth in personal incomes, of course, but it is still an increase in real terms. The tone is still a bit negative about these tax increases, for me. A better NHS also brings benefits, for example, but, more generally, what else should the State be acquiring money to spend on? All State spending is bad only for austerity merchants of course, doubtless in order to prop up the Government's credit-worthiness. Perhaps the assumptions will come out in the debate?
Paul Johnson, the director of IFS and an author of the report, said Britain was finally having to face up to one of the biggest choices in a generation.Larry also manages to sneak in a crafty rebuke:
The research was published as the Spectator reported that Theresa May had decided to increase the NHS’s budget by 3% a year for each of the remaining four years of this parliament. It means that, by 2022, the health service would be getting the £350m a week extra that was promised on the side of the Brexit battlebus in 2016. (my emphasis) The magazine’s cover story, on changed Conservative attitudes to NHS funding, stated that, in making her decision, May had overridden Philip Hammond’s concerns that such large sums would be difficult to afford.
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