ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by 4(T)

The NHS costs in excess of £150bn per annum,

Wrong. Projected expenditure for next year on health is £125bn.

Originally Posted by 4(T)

and there is not a penny set aside for the pensions of its 1 million+ staff.

Wrong. The NHS pension fund is in surplus. Health care staff signed an agreement in 2009 to protect the public purse from any further increase in liabilities.

Originally Posted by 4(T)

Health & welfare currently cost c.£450 bn per annum

Wrong. Projected expenditure for 2013 on health & welfare is £235bn. Even if you add pensions in it is well below £400bn. Are you just making these figures up?

Again I repeat - The Health & Social Care Act is not designed to save money!

Figures etc, especially the third one:

UK government expenditure 2013 - Pie Charts Tables

United Kingdom budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/pesa_2011_chapter1.pdf

Originally Posted by Jabber

...
As for the Ponzi scheme similarity, that is basically just to demonstrate that those paying in in the future I'll be paying for the sins of the past rather than getting the benefit they should fairly be expecting. But I think you know that too.
...

if you are a current BNP Paradis shareholder it is very likely you will be much poorer shortly, they've over extended themselves spectacularly and they are to big to bail, that's a Ponzi scheme.

The very predictable business that the NHS does i.e. principally managing the last six months of life of the elderly is rather different, cost will rise as there are lot of old ladies, it might be done better if it was more integrated with the social work systems , it might also be considerably worse.

If you are paying into a pension scheme based on triple A rated T-Bonds you can fully expect to be robbed at some point, national insurance is rather different unless government is allowed to welch on the deal by a foolish public, Standards of care in the UK are declining under demographic pressure but they'll probably do so even more rapidly under the sort of US style heavily rigged market system the providers and their chums in this and the last government would like.

Gouging providers are currently one of the main factors bankrupting the US, they are heading towards spending a quarter of their GDP on providing patchy and mediocre healthcare for most of their population. Barrycare, really just Bob Dole's answer to the myopic vision of Hilarycare, does little to remedy this, indeed it just extends the thieves charter to a larger base of insured people. It's only because the UK has has the sense to intervene in a market that heavily favors the provider that care costs are as low as they as they are.

This is however not remotely like the systemic fraud we are fool enough to tolerate in high finance and it is idiotic to insist it is.