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Following the link
from: https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/...
to here: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/p...

It appears that spending has continued to go up. So if there have been cuts, where's the difference going?

For reference - the UK NHS budget is £120m (USD$153m) for 65m people.

I can definitely see a US single payer programme costing way more per capita for many years (possibly decades) as the "old way of doing things" is unwound though.

£123 BILLION pounds.

Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.

For reference - the UK NHS budget is £120m (USD$153m) for 65m people.

Wow, healthcare for $2 per person per year? That figure cannot be correct. I suspect you need to multiply those numbers by 1000, and even then I'll bet that's not the full cost. £120B would make sense for operational expenses (salaries, supplies, etc.), with capital expenditures (buildings, durable equipment, etc.) accounted for separately.

Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.

For reference - the UK NHS budget is £120m (USD$153m) for 65m people.

I can definitely see a US single payer programme costing way more per capita for many years (possibly decades) as the "old way of doing things" is unwound though.

Since the federal government already borrows $4 out of ever $10 it spends just where do you see the money to pay for a single payer system coming from?

I mean the obvious place is from the budget of the Department of Defense, right?! Most of the Americans I know (I lived in Ohio for two years) would happily stop exporting shrapnel and high explosives to the middle east if it meant they could get more efficient healthcare services.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/b...

Looks like the NHS budget has only been lowered a few times in the last 50 years (and this chart includes the effects of inflation).

How exactly is this running down the service? Because it isn't given an unlimited budget?

What you're essentially saying is that despite consistent budget increases above inflation, because those increases weren't *big enough* the service is degrading. Can you clarify why this isn't a good example for me to use about how caring for the needy is a neverending black hole for money?

And please keep in mind, I was replying to a post that said "It's an investment in the future of this country, and it benefits everyone. Less problems, less crime, less strain on medical services" -- so theoretically the NHS budget could be shrunk after we help the needy some... obviously that doesn't happen because it's complete BS.

these awful cutbacks

The ones that include continually rising NHS spending, even in real terms? https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/p...

Is that why wards, services and even hospitals are being cut to ribbons all over?

These are the 19 hospitals, including five major acute hospitals, that are marked for closure as the NHS faces its biggest shake up in a generation to plug a £22bn black hole in funding, according to an investigation by i.

Acute hospitals closing or at risk of closure:
:: South West London – one of five sites proposed to close – St Helier, St George’s, Epsom, Croydon, Kingston
:: North West London – future of Ealing Hospital in doubt
:: Leicestershire – one of three acute hospital sites proposed to close
:: Black Country – merger of two general hospitals to a single site
:: Dorset – merger of Royal Bournemouth and Poole Hospital Community hospitals facing closure or redesignation:
:: Alston, Cumbria **
:: Maryport, Cumbria **
:: Wigton, Cumbria **
:: Hinkley and District Hospital, Leicestershire
:: Rutland Memorial Hospital, Leicestershire
:: Bolsover Local Hospital, Derbyshire
:: Newholme Hospital, Derbyshire
:: St Leonards, Dorset
:: Alderney, Dorset :: Westhaven, Dorset
:: Ashburton, Devon *
:: Bovey Tracey, Devon *
:: Dartmouth, Devon *
:: Paignton, Devon *
(* To be replaced by health and well-being centres) (** Closure of all beds under consideration)
Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/essentials...

And that's just the tip of it. The fact is the tories want it privatised, like they want everything privatised. They are dealing death by 1000 cuts (quite literally this time) by degrading services slowly and often enough that pretty soon health insurance will look like a good idea, then more and more people will get it to cover the short fall of the nhs, pretty soon gov can mandate everyone needs it to access nhs then the nhs is gone or exists in name only.

You only need to look at brexit, one of the big claims was the £350m a week for the nhs. Ok that was never a real pledge and no one actually expected them to get anything like that, but what happened? Oh, no new money at all for the nhs and here, have some more cuts. You can't believe a word the tories say, especially about funding public services.

If you want to vote tory fine, but at least have the fucking balls to admit that you're for cuts to hospitals, schools, services and everything else they can get their hands on. Don't insult the rest of us by pretending they do good things.

Can you take the tory challenge?

http://anotherangryvoice.blogs...

these awful cutbacks

The ones that include continually rising NHS spending, even in real terms?
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/p...

Comparably up in Scotland where I am, the NHS isn't even nearly as bad.

Strange, a political party in Scotland thinks the English NHS is better.
http://labourhame.com/a-long-h...

I honestly believe if I had been born in England, I wouldn't be typing this, or anything, because of sudden death from a trivial infection.

You're a fuckwit then. Come to England, be amazed how you can still stay alive.

died from a trivial throat infection when being treated for cancer

Person with cancer dies, news at 11.

That's a tax I would happily pay for! I think most of England would agree.

Most of England would love Scotland to fucking pay its taxes and stop leaching off taxpayers south of the border. You go for it.

"Your sort of right but wrong. Profit is not the problem with expensive health care."
To get one thing out of the way first: I'm in the UK, and I don't think there is anything wrong with profit in providing healthcare, provided the companies/people making the profit are operating in a reasonably free market. That said, I do like a system which provides universal healthcare. (So to parts of the Republican Party I probably seem like a pinko cheese-eating surrender monkey commie.)

"The problem is government involvement and patents."

To quote an AC replying (I think) to another post:
"The thing with healthcare is that some level of care gets provided whether the patient can pay or not. So that raises costs overall. ."
--So why then is healthcare in the US three times the cost per head in the UK which has universal health care free at the point of use?

So, what that AC already said (subject to the caveat below), plus this graphic from the Kings Fund, a well-respected UK organisation researching healthcare, and a question:
Do you have any evidence that the US is getting value for money by apparently spending about 45% per more of per capita GDP on healthcare than, for example, Germany, which has a similar per capita GDP to that of the US.?

Caveat: gdp per capita: UK about 42,000usd, USA about 53,000usd, about 1.25 times the UK;
healthcare spend as a percentage of GDP: UK about 8.7%, USA about 16.3%, about 1.9 times the UK;
so the US cost per head is about 2.4 times that for the UK.

"If you want a public health system, move to Canada or the UK. We had the best system in the world, the best doctors, the best hospitals. A competitive system is far superior to a government run bureaucratic mess."

health-care-spending-compared
Do you think that by spending about 40% per capita more on health care than any other country in the world the USA has health care which is on average significantly better than the health care in, for example, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Canada, let alone 40% better?

A true story: many years ago I visited an English friend who at the time was working in Vienna. In a conversation with her Canadian husband, for some reason (I forget the context) I praised the UK National Health Service (NHS). He - quite rightly - pointed out that I had no knowledge whatsoever of any other system, and suggested that the Canadian system might be better than the NHS.

Since then I've been even more cautious about pontificating about things for which I have insufficient knowledge. So it's possible that for the average person (not the super rich) health care in the USA is better than in - for example - the countries I listed. But I'm doubtful that USA citizens are getting better value for total health care spending than in those countries.

Note: the Kings Fund is an independent organisation dedicated to research to improve UK health care, and I trust it not to have views contaminated by left or right prejudices for or against public or private health care provision. So the statistics on per capita health care spending are probably reasonably accurate. And the following link provides confirmation:
wikipedia

I live outside of London. We have a different way of life here. It's being damaged by the urbanisation of our landscape, the changes to our culture, the loss of career opportunities.

If I want a job I can get one tomorrow in London. I have to wait weeks in other parts of the UK. The terrible London-centricity of the economy is a massive factor in the Leave vote, a massive factor in the Scottish demands for independence, and hides the impact of immigration on the people and communities outside of the city.

Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening.

As for the coalition Government and its support for the NHS, you're talking utter fucking bullshit. The NHS budget has been rising year-on-year, and in real terms is higher than in 2010.
http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/pr... if you want a reference.

So more and more money, yet you feel services have been devastated? Maybe money isn't the issue after all. Maybe it's the fucking demand.

But you go ahead and blame foreigners. It'll make you feel better, despite being an idiotic, xenophobic misdiagnosis of the problem.

Lets put this in plain simple small words: Fuck off and die.

I wasn't born in Great Britain, I've lived in mainland Europe, I've lived elsewhere and I work in a multinational company collaborating and socialising with people from every part of the globe. I may or may not be xenophobic but you have no way to judge that and I'm fed up with cunts like you pulling out the racism or xenophobia line instead of addressing the core underlying issues.

So fuck you, and don't expect further replies. You're not worth my time.

In the British NHS, bureaucrats outnumber doctors and nurses by a hefty margin.

I found this: http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/topics/nhs-reform/mythbusters/nhs-managers I don't know the bias of this site though. But it mainly seems to be a suggestion of the right wing press about the NHS bureaucracy.