John, it is easy to get away from the notion that general taxation is the
most practicable system when it is seen that taxation does not fund
anything. And means testing is unnecessary as well. There is no financial
need for it or any other reason to implement it. One practical way forward,
once it is understood that the government can pay for anything they wish to
in their own currency, is to note that what is funded and by how much is a
political problem. This would be the only fair way, surely, to deal with the
bottomless pit.

The best argument for population taxation for the NHS is not for the funding
of it but for psychological reasons as this gives people a feeling that they
have a stake in the system and a right to access it, which carries with it
an obligation of the system to provide what the people are "paying" for. One
entity's right is another's obligation. Because the NHS is a government
institution, the government has an obligation to provide the services that
the population is supporting, however they do this. The Tories have reneged
on this obligation, claiming that there is no money for it, which is an out
and out lie or complete bullshit in Harry Frankfurt's sense of the term.

Robert, it is late for me, but I will try to summarize Werner's argument. As
for Bernanke's particular comment, I have also been unable to find it. I
shall keep looking.

larry

Dr L Brownstein
[alt-e:] mailto:[log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of John Whittington
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2016 6:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "Free at Point of Delivery" - what are the alternatives?

At 11:46 11/09/2016 +0000, John Veit-Wilson wrote (in small part):
>In short, the NHS could be funded adequately to supply the level of 
>service needed today; there is no need to consider charging unless that 
>is argued as desirable for other reasons than finance; and savings 
>could be produced by eliminating unnecessary costs introduced by 
>existing marketisation methods before patients are charged for service.

Firstly, I think it's generally agreed that advances in medical science and
technology have been such that we are essentially dealing with a 'bottomless
pit' - so that no amaount of money would really be 'adequate' 
to fund a service of a quality that any ('adequately funded') health service
could theoretically provide.

It seems hard to get away from the notion that funding the NHS out of
general taxation (i.e.'free at the point of delivery') is the fairest
practicable system, since it does go a long way to charging people on the
basis of their ability to pay (without the problems, and cost, of any
attempt at independent 'means testing').

However, although I may be wrong, I don't think that John B was suggesting
'token charges' as a means of significantly increasing the NHS's pot of
money - particularly given that it would be difficult to avoid the cost of
the bureaucacy associated with collecting (and 'policing') such small
charges 'neutralising' most, if not all, of the money so collected.  Rather,
I think he was probably suggesting that even 'token' 
charges (even if all gobbled up by the administrative process of collecting
them) might significantly reduce 'inappropriate' demands on (and 'abuses' 
of) the available finite NHS resources, leaving more of those finite
resources (however much) to be used for what the NHS is meant to be doing.
I have no idea whether or not that would work, and can't see how one could
get any reliable estimate of whether or not it would work without actually
'trying it'.  Since that would probably be politically damaging for whatever
party was in government at the time, one suspects that it probably won't
happen any time soon!

Kind Regards,


John

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