bridge too far

He had to bite the bullet, then.

And don't they have to pay a large wad to their bank at the end of this month too?

Johnny Bognor - do you do paid work?

DD there IS a difference. 'Yanks' pay for health care (or rather their employers do, if they have one). But they have to pay MORE for health care if they have or develop a condition (through no fault of their own often). If they're unemployed they can't afford private medical insurance so have to go hang if they become ill. We pay for health care according to our ability to pay. If we're children or pensioners we don't have to (unless we're a wealthy pensioner and pay tax - but we still get 'free' prescriptions and eye tests) and no matter how serious our illnesses we get treatment regardless. That's the difference - thank goodness.

From that link: "The figures, calculated by The Daily Telegraph, are taken from documents published by the Treasury at the time of the Budget last month. They only capture taxes that fall on individuals such as council tax, alcohol duty and income tax. They exclude company taxes." So all taxes then - some of which are 'choice' taxes anyway. Not just income tax. I don't mind paying that amount of tax at all. At least I know that people like my mum, my children and my grandchildren (oh and me) will have their health looked after regardless of their circumstances. If some of the large companies paid the corporation taxes that they were supposed to, instead of paying expensive accountants to 'avoid' it, we'd probably see that percentage fall anyway. Glad to see Mr Cameron supporting the NHS too. Oh and 'nearly most' means at least more than 50%. HTH

You are quite dim sometimes, aren't you?

The tooth fairy or so I was told.

The NHS is funded from the central exchequer. The central exchequer gets its money from income tax, corporation tax, VAT, sale of government assets, council tax income. The exchequer then allocates money to the NHS, local government, schools, the armed forces ............ However, you carry on being pedantic. It's no more than I expected Ah I see you saw the error of your ways and edited your post

Yes, that's right the NHS is funded by central government. The government then devolves money to local Primary Care Trusts who spend their budgets as they see fit. Primary Care Trusts are broadly based on counties. The level of funding is decided by population levels and demographics i.e. poverty levels, numbers of young children and pensioners etc. So my PCT that caters for large numbers of students and young families may have different spending priorities than, say, Worthing where there is a large retired population. However, PCTs have to meet national targets such as waiting times, speediness of cancer treatment, reduction in smoking, obesity and alcoholism. I hope this explains to you how the NHS is funded and operated. As an aside, why should I have to have a less / more effective level of rubbish collection than you or anyone else? Why should schools in my area be better (or worse) than those in your area?

That's called local democracy and accountability - something many people have been demanding for years. You can't moan about centralised control on the one hand and then about local decision making on another. I'm not too sure that my local police force offers exactly the same service as the one in the next door county either - or my local fire service. But I'd still rather have them there and pay for them, even if I don't use them. Same with the NHS.

No it didn't cost her a penny because she is of the generation that didn't work once married and so didn't pay tax or NI. She did of course pay tax on her pension and my father did of course pay tax and NI. But she didn't pay for her health treatment specifically. As you well know and understand. And - again - NI is not hypothecated for health services. What a shame you don't read the contributions from our American resident fans. Sorry Weston - I thought your post was from dear old JB. But my comments still stand.

I reckon the good doctor will withdraw from the bid, Nick and that another buyer will materialise to buy the club for 5p.

There is a difference between what a person 'pays' whether through insurance or tax / NI and what their treatments cost. I think most sensible people realise that. I pay £200 a year house insurance (that's MY cost) but if my house was burgled or flooded it could cost £thousands to remedy (what it will cost my insurance company). LV may well have been quoted £1200 a month for his family's insurance. But he hasn't said how much the cost of any treatment they might receive will be. However he has pointed out that a lot of conditions rule insurance out. Just because the average cost of NHS care in this country is £1800 odd, doesn't mean the individual contributes that amount. AND THAT'S THE POINT - the cost of treatment is irrelevant. It's the need of the individual that is sacrosanct. I pay for the Police and Fire Service (through my council tax). I've never used them. But I wouldn't be without them or want to be dependent on 'insurance' where I might have to pay more / less depending on where I live / how often I set fire to the chip pan.

And earlier in the article it mentions the need for a service 'free at the point of delivery'. Oh sorry I forgot - you don't understand the difference, do you The sentence you now quote centres on the fact that all the health services were under an umbrella organisation, rather than with disparate private operators as was the case pre 1948. Actually, if you properly read the link you provide, you'll see absolutely the justification for the NHS being created and why it is so admired world-wide.

And in one fell swoop you demolish your own argument

Good grief! Obviously he's not on performance related pay

You silly little man! I was actually responding to that bastion of republicansim, St George. He asked how much of our 'pay check' do we pay out for the NHS, comparing this to medical insurance. As Revolution Saint has said to you over and over again, no-one has ever suggested that the NHS is free. We all know that we pay for it but we pay a fixed rate, be that through tax and / or National Insurance. But we get as much treatment as we need, regardless of cost. This is in contrast to the current system in the US where you pay medical insurance (if you can afford it) but then stand a good chance of being denied treatment because your insurance doesn't cover a condition, or the cash for the treatment has been exhausted.

Yep - starts at 7pm apparently.

We don't. National Insurance and Taxes are not hypothecated in this way. NHS spending comes out of overall government spending. And at least what we do pay will cover our treatment regardless. In other words, treatment won't be denied because we have a pre-existing condition.

I would hope that NHS Direct would help to reduce GP attendances. I know my girls use it from time to time if they're concerned about their babies. But you're right to highlight the poor (and this may well include the elderly so maybe they shouldn't be charged). The less well-off tend to suffer more ill-health for a variety of reasons.

ESB - do you think maybe the consultant referred to alternative treatment to surgery for the over 70s because it would be less risky? Surgeons are reluctant to operate on the elderly because of the many risks associated with age. Having said that, I know of two men over 70 who have had surgery for this condition, although again prevention is targeted with awareness campaigns and routine screening. I think some prostate cancers are benign and can be treated non-invasively? I don't know much about 'man bits'. Before she died, my mother was diagnosed with a degenerative condition of the spine. Although she was in a lot of pain, the surgeon said the risks of her surviving a procedure to fuse the spine outweighed any potential benefit that could have accrued.

Many GPs increased their earnings because they took over the surgeries to run them as businesses. This means they have to pay staff, running costs and contribute to the cost of an out-of-hours service if they don't provide one themselves out of those earnings. It makes sense to 'target' the named illnesses because they are probably related to smoking, alcohol consumption, STDs and obesity. These cost the NHS £millions to treat and it is more than likely more cost-effective to prevent them than to cure them. For a long time, large parts of the NHS budget have been devolved to primary care and preventative strategies and rightly so. Your example bears no comparison with the 'Canadian' story at all. That is an example of clinicians recommending perhaps unnecessary surgery to line their pockets. Not the same thing at all. I'm not pretending that the NHS is anything other than a fine institution, the envy of the world, that provides treatment regardless of the circumstances of the individual. It never pretends to be perfect but its moral and altruistic foundations are to be applauded. And I'm bloody proud of that.

You see, on the one hand we have people demanding that local NHS bodies (in these cases it's the Primary Care Trusts) manage their own budgets and decide how to spend their money but then those same people complain about 'postcode lotteries'. Everyone wants every treatment to be available for them even if it is at the expense of someone else. A judgement has to be made and someone has to do it. If the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) says a drug should be available on the NHS, it usually is. The 'problems' come when NICE questions the efficacy of the drug. NICE comprises clinicians, patients etc who are therefore best placed to judged each treatment and is an expert advisory body. However, as I've already said, pharma companies put huge emotional pressure on patients who could potentially be prescribed their expensive drugs to campaign for that drug to be commonly available. NICE has the almost impossible task of saying that the benefits of that drug have not been conclusively demonstrated. It must be hard to tell patients that the benefits of the drug are not overwhelmingly clear and cannot therefore be funded. I wouldn't like to be the PCT budget holder having to choose between one patient and another to receive funding from a limited budget. But that's what you get with local democracy. Let's not forget the commercial interests of some clinicans (although there are a large number who are only interested in the welfare of their patients). Did you know that when Canada changed from an 'NHS' to a system more akin to the American one, the incidence of gall bladder removal soared? Was this coincidental or did the Canadian surgeons suddenly see an opportunity?

So you didn't read what I posted about my mother receiving 9 years' worth of drugs at £30,000 a year = £270,000 then?

I think that power struggle has only been a recent development (started about 15/16 years ago?) when the purchaser / provider split was implemented. Partly because some people thought the NHS should be run as a commercial enterprise. I can remember a Health Centre bidding for an x-ray machine because the Health Centre was located on the cusp of two NHS Trusts and the Trust owning the Health Centre wanted to draw people away from its competitor. A waste of money as both local Trusts had the required equipment.