Parliamentary debate on privatisation of NHS

Found on twitter
Interesting reading
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/whal...l+fact"+OR+fullfact+OR+"fullfact+org")#g272.4

 

I'd much rather have the NHS than the monarchy!

The purpose of National Insurance in the UK has been changed several times over the years and has now become, effectively, just another source of income for the treasury. According to Wikipedia it provides 21.5% of the total income received by HMRC (UK equivalent of the IRS). There is nothing to stop governments using National Insurance in the way that it was originally intended - as a source of funds for the welfare state, and later, also as a source of funds for the NHS. Why introduce another tax when there is one already in place?

I wondered why Jeremy Hunt and others in the government were so keen on this idea of the NHS tax. And then I spotted a comment on an article which gave a very likely explanation.

Cast your mind back a few years to when people were first allowed to opt out of paying National Insurance towards the state pension because they were already paying into a private pension. Now imagine a future in which the rich and the middle classes pay into private healthcare policies and are allowed to opt out of paying for the NHS. The NHS would lose vast amounts of money overnight and would promptly collapse. Jeremy *unt and his ilk would have achieved their dearest wish in one fell swoop.