Aspirin isn't cheap? Can buy it, paracetamol and ibuprofen for pennies a box here.
https://groceries.asda.com/product/a...s/910002246310
No it doesn't. It shows the Tories consistently spending a higher amount on the NHS than Labour ever did.
Yes Labour expenditure spiked at 7.59% (a one off and the only time ever it was higher than under the Tories). However that is rendered moot unless you are completely economically illiterate because that was only funded by a pre election spending splurge that ran the deficit to over 10% of GDP, worse even than Greece. A deficit of £175bn. So any spending that year wasn't funded it was maxed out credit card debt.
In 2016/7 (most recent figures) under the Tories the spending is 7.26% which compares with 6.38% a decade earlier and 6.99% in Labours last pre election year.
Any talk of funding without taking into account the fact that 2010 was not a funded year is completely economically illiterate. So the Tories percentage is properly funded higher than it EVER has been before the Tories regained office. Not just in plain monetary terms but in percentage of GDP too.
Edit: Also worth noting that the Tories are keeping it consistently higher than it ever was before not just spiking it in election years only.
EDIT2: Its also delightfully ironic to see you bemoan pledging to cut unskilled migration (while keeping doctors and nurses migration protected) as exacerbating NHS shortages then saying in the same breath that a growing population needs more healthcare. Of course it does. Thanks to net migration we have over a million more people than we did before and that's rising still by hundreds of thousands a year exacerbating demands on the NHS. But thankfully we are measuring expenditure by percentage of GDP and not cash terms so that is already taken into account.
Aspirine may not be the best example, but the trickery described exists, and has caused existing medication to jump in price dramatically.
Congratulations America
Do you know why I often tell you read posts properly before replying to them?Its also delightfully ironic to see you bemoan pledging to cut unskilled migration (while keeping doctors and nurses migration protected) as exacerbating NHS shortages then saying in the same breath that a growing population needs more healthcare. Of course it does. Thanks to net migration we have over a million more people than we did before and that's rising still by hundreds of thousands a year exacerbating demands on the NHS. But thankfully we are measuring expenditure by percentage of GDP and not cash terms so that is already taken into account.
It's because you're an extremely sloppy reader.
For example, in the post you quoted, I said "aging population". I did not say "growing population". They mean completely different things. One refers to the size of the population, while the other refers to the composition of the population. All other things being equal, a population with a higher proportion of elderly and very old people will have greater healthcare needs than a similarly sized population with a lower proportion of elderly and very old people.
The impact of EU migration has been beneficial to the extent that a greater proportion of non-British EU citizens in the UK are doctors (rough estimate around 3.7 per 1000 compared to 2.8 UK average), and the non-British EU citizens in the UK are overall much younger and healthier, most of them productive tax-paying working age adults.
I'm sorry for using the word "asinine" so often these days but that truly is asinine. Every UK govt. must (roughly speaking) spend more on the NHS than the preceding govt. in order to just maintain the status quo because the numbers and proportions of the elderly and the very old in the UK are increasing, and healthcare is getting more expensive. The graph shows that, under Thatcher, Cameron and May, the Tories have reduced and/or constrained spending on the NHS, in addition to the other harmful changes I listed that you conveniently ignored.
Why, you could've made a killing by just shutting down the NHS during the peak of the global recession! Why didn't Labour do that??Yes Labour expenditure spiked at 7.59% (a one off and the only time ever it was higher than under the Tories). However that is rendered moot unless you are completely economically illiterate because that was only funded by a pre election spending splurge that ran the deficit to over 10% of GDP, worse even than Greece. A deficit of £175bn. So any spending that year wasn't funded it was maxed out credit card debt.
Perhaps because they recognized that shortsighted short-term austerity has long-term negative consequences.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Actually you didn't simply write that. This is what I was quoting: Again, pointing to "record levels" on various metrics is a stupid way to defend these clowns; the NHS's staffing needs increase with the growing needs of the population ... now unless you think that a growing population has no extra illnesses, births etc then yes the growing needs are reflected on both issues. Both of my daughters were born on days where the local hospital's maternity wards were full - was it the ageing population that caused the maternity wards to be so busy? Or do younger, working-age people tend to be the ones having kids?
Which is why I'm pro-immigration. However immigration is a big part of the "growing needs of the population"The impact of EU migration has been beneficial to the extent that a greater proportion of non-British EU citizens in the UK are doctors (rough estimate around 3.7 per 1000 compared to 2.8 UK average), and the non-British EU citizens in the UK are overall much younger and healthier, most of them productive tax-paying working age adults.
No the graph shows that Cameron and May are consistently spending more than Blair and Brown did. An unfunded one-off election year spike with a £175bn deficit is not what Brown consistently spent nor is it was Blair ever spent. Furthermore unless GDP is static even if the percentage remains the same, real healthcare spending is rising in line with GDP growth.I'm sorry for using the word "asinine" so often these days but that truly is asinine. Every UK govt. must (roughly speaking) spend more on the NHS than the preceding govt. in order to just maintain the status quo because the numbers and proportions of the elderly and the very old in the UK are increasing, and healthcare is getting more expensive. The graph shows that, under Thatcher, Cameron and May, the Tories have reduced and/or constrained spending on the NHS, in addition to the other harmful changes I listed that you conveniently ignored.
Actually Labour did propose cutting NHS spending. The only parties to have ever cut NHS spending are the Labour Party and the SNP. Labour went into the 2010 election claiming that Cameron's pledge to protect NHS spending from cuts was "irresponsible" and wouldn't be honoured, it continued to call protecting the NHS budget irresponsible after the election.Why, you could've made a killing by just shutting down the NHS during the peak of the global recession! Why didn't Labour do that??
https://metro.co.uk/2010/06/17/burnh...g-cuts-395729/
In 2015 like 2010 it was the Tories who pledged more NHS spending, not Labour: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-10182796.html
The devolved Welsh Labour Assembly and Scottish SNP Parliament both cut NHS spending at the same time as the English Tory-led Coalition was increasing it. The Labour and SNP cuts to spending will have a small but actual reduction in the overall UK proportion since the Tories were responsible only for the English figure.
Nope, increasing deficits during boom times leads to catastropic consequences when a recession hits and you've already maxed out the credit card. That's the problem with socialists, eventually you run out of other people's money.Perhaps because they recognized that shortsighted short-term austerity has long-term negative consequences.
I cannot figure out whether you're just stupid or if there is some other reason you apparently cannot see the difference between "growing needs of the population", "aging population" and "growing population". Most people would just acknowledge they made a mistake, but you're doubling down, as if you expect me to believe you didn't incorrectly claim that I said something I clearly did not say. This is ridiculous. Get a grip man.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
You referred to growing needs and a million extra people does indeed grow needs. You may not have used the exact words but then I didn't put it in quotation marks either. I thought you were intelligent enough to be making a good point that the million more people we have now requires more expenditure than then.
If I overestimated you and you didn't mean that then I apologise. If you actually believed a million extra people could live here without needing extra treatments of any sort then I'm sorry I gave you more credit than you deserved.
But good to realise you understand you're barking up the wrong tree financially.
PS the greatest change to our demand on the NHS in the last 7 years is quantity of people not age. The median age in the UK has gone up by 0.6 years while the population has gone up by 10%
Oh my god. You actually are an idiot
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I was being sarcastic about taking OTC Aspirin for my self-diagnosed arthritis, but it's no joke when it comes to insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Instead of starting a new thread, let's continue the debate about healthcare expenditures in this one.
Open enrollment in the "Obamacare" health insurance market exchange started 11/1, but I haven't looked at it yet. I've been trying to buy my own health insurance since 2001, and it's been a huge, constant struggle. It didn't do much good that I got an exemption from the individual mandate (before that was reversed), because I was still at risk for medical bankruptcy if diagnosed with diabetes, cancer, or dementia.
So, where's this great, comprehensive, affordable healthcare....as promised by Trump and the GOP?
Oh wow, I had forgotten all about this, perhaps the dumbest RB take of the year:
The median age of the UK is uninteresting, because it obscures detail and is not particularly informative when it comes to analyzing demand on public healthcare services. What is interesting is population structure, specifically the proportions--and the absolute number--of the population that fall into categories with distinctly different healthcare needs. Out of convention, when it comes to looking at health economics, research focuses on the proportions & numbers of those aged over 65, as well as octagenarians (usually 85+), nonagenarians and (increasingly) centenarians, with specific age bands varying over time and between countries. That is because their healthcare needs--and the cost of providing their healthcare--differ greatly from the needs and expenditures of eg. children, adolescents, adults in their 30s and middle-aged adults. Even though some of these cohorts now show higher rates of healthy aging, these groups have a greater burden of illness, including chronic illness, and they are much more likely to suffer from conditions that are both much more costly to treat and lead to significant disability.
You're a hopelessly sloppy reader and a sloppy thinker, but I did try to clarify this for you:
Less than a fifth of the UK's population are aged 65 and over, and yet they account for two-fifths of the NHS's costs despite deliberate under-funding that impoverishes the elderly, leaves millions with unmet needs and saddles close to a fifth of the population with the task of providing unpaid care.All other things being equal, a population with a higher proportion of elderly and very old people will have greater healthcare needs than a similarly sized population with a lower proportion of elderly and very old people.
Even in this group, there are stark differences between those in their 60s/70s and those in their 80s/90s/100s. The latter still constitute a small proportion of the population, but they are also rapidly increasing; while the overall proportion of the population aged 65 and over rose by almost a fifth in ten years (2005-2015), the proportion of those aged 85 and over rose by nearly a third. Among the younger elderly we see costs increasing at disproportionate rates partly because of the rapid growth in the availability of new, expensive but valuable treatments for ailments that affect them at much higher rates, such as various forms of cancer. Among the very old, we see similarly disproportionate cost-increases due to the sharp increases in prevalence of dementia and its associated health problems, combined with greater life expectancy even for those with dementia.
On average, an 85-y-o person in the UK costs the NHS 6-7 times as much as a 30-y-o. On average, healthcare expenditure is roughly similar for toddlers and younger adults (slightly higher for toddlers). The population of the UK has grown, but the impact on demand that can be ascribed to general population growth due to births as well as due to the immigration of healthy working-age adults pales in significance to the impact on demand that can be ascribed to the rapid changes in the age structure of the population (for which "the aging of the population" is a common and convenient shorthand)--changes that are obscured by uninformative statistics such as the median age.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."