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It being final accounts, and me being an accountant, my thoughts naturally turned to the structure & funding of the NHS…
So I looked on the Adam Smith NHS rebate plan, as espoused by the Tories, but designed by the Adam Smith Institute. Its not quite as badly thought out as I thought. The basics are:
In essence, if it costs (say) the NHS £100 per year to provide health protection to the "average person" in the UK, then each person gets a rebate of (say) £50 to cover private health care for the year.
But this means that the NHS actually accumulates additional resources within it (to the tune of £50 per person who accepts the rebate, given the £100 cost & the £50 rebate numbers given) for each person who opts out.
Its got to be recognised that this “average health cost” of £100 per year is actually higher than most people actually cost because its the national average & covers protection provided for the long term sick etc who are treated by the NHS. As such, the person can actually buy decent health care via the private sector fairly readily. They use this to buy "generic health protection" from an other health insurance provider; this maximises the provision of health care resources to those who need them (ie £50 extra is released to the NHS per person who opts out). The health insurance the person who opts out buys must, by law, be provided without a medical health check of any description, so you cant exclude sick people from getting treatment, but want (bizzarely) to go private.
The downside of it, however, is that if you do accept the rebate and then fall ill in that year, then all you've got is your personal health insurance ('cept A&E & general “emergency cover” which is still covered); *however*, the costs that you would incur would be paid privately via your insurance – which means, that, as generally “richer people” who want to go private will end up paying for their treatment via the health insurance people, the poorer & those people who remain in the NHS tend to get a better service.
Its quite clever really. The moral of the story is “Tory NHS plans are a hidden tax increase – for the people who accept the money”
S
So I looked on the Adam Smith NHS rebate plan, as espoused by the Tories, but designed by the Adam Smith Institute. Its not quite as badly thought out as I thought. The basics are:
In essence, if it costs (say) the NHS £100 per year to provide health protection to the "average person" in the UK, then each person gets a rebate of (say) £50 to cover private health care for the year.
But this means that the NHS actually accumulates additional resources within it (to the tune of £50 per person who accepts the rebate, given the £100 cost & the £50 rebate numbers given) for each person who opts out.
Its got to be recognised that this “average health cost” of £100 per year is actually higher than most people actually cost because its the national average & covers protection provided for the long term sick etc who are treated by the NHS. As such, the person can actually buy decent health care via the private sector fairly readily. They use this to buy "generic health protection" from an other health insurance provider; this maximises the provision of health care resources to those who need them (ie £50 extra is released to the NHS per person who opts out). The health insurance the person who opts out buys must, by law, be provided without a medical health check of any description, so you cant exclude sick people from getting treatment, but want (bizzarely) to go private.
The downside of it, however, is that if you do accept the rebate and then fall ill in that year, then all you've got is your personal health insurance ('cept A&E & general “emergency cover” which is still covered); *however*, the costs that you would incur would be paid privately via your insurance – which means, that, as generally “richer people” who want to go private will end up paying for their treatment via the health insurance people, the poorer & those people who remain in the NHS tend to get a better service.
Its quite clever really. The moral of the story is “Tory NHS plans are a hidden tax increase – for the people who accept the money”
S
