Coronavirus.

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
This 5G thing is going to be a permanent part of our anti-intellectual landscape, now, isn't it?

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cj1

Well-Known Forumite
* have * died
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Sweden have less infections and deaths without shutting down the economy. They have flattened the peak with social distancing and shielding. South Korea have successfully flattened the curve with track and trace. Lockdown wasn't the only option to surpress the spread. But is likely to be the most damaging to personal incomes and public service provisions. At some point this money has to be paid back Austerity 2.0 anyone?
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
You're right, lockdown isn't the only way, but it was decided to abandon contact tracing so it's all that could happen.

Taxes will have to risem there is no doubt about that.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
There's plenty of tax revenue available, if the multiple cosy avoidance/evasion schemes are looked at by people who aren't looking at it with themselves and their associates in mind.

Handing money over the counter at a GP surgery will change people's attitude - they won't expect to wait ages and they'll expect some action quickly thereafter.
 

cj1

Well-Known Forumite
The beginning of the end of a free health service there.
It could well be a strong economy is needed to fund the NHS. Wasn't that the Tory mantra for a number of years until recently.
Maybe start with a nominal £10.00 charge for a doctor's appointment. Get it back if you qualify for a refund. Isn't this what they do on the continent?
This could be a way to stop people abusing the service but still keep it universally accessible at a time when funding will no doubt be restricted.
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
What if you live from hand to mouth as so many do? Even having £10 spare is something a lot of people don't have. So then you get even more deaths from people in poverty as they are too scared to go to the doctor in case they don't get the £10 they might have had to borrow from a lender back.

I don't disagree that some people abuse it, but using a hammer to crack a nut will always disadvantage those that need it more than ever.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
What if you live from hand to mouth as so many do? Even having £10 spare is something a lot of people don't have. So then you get even more deaths from people in poverty as they are too scared to go to the doctor in case they don't get the £10 they might have had to borrow from a lender back.

I don't disagree that some people abuse it, but using a hammer to crack a nut will always disadvantage those that need it more than ever.
That is no doubt true, but 'people' aren't too bothered about them, as we can see for the last few years/decades....
 

Sk84goal

Well-Known Forumite
Sweden have less infections and deaths without shutting down the economy. They have flattened the peak with social distancing and shielding. South Korea have successfully flattened the curve with track and trace. Lockdown wasn't the only option to surpress the spread. But is likely to be the most damaging to personal incomes and public service provisions. At some point this money has to be paid back Austerity 2.0 anyone?

Unfortunately you would only be correct if the UK like South Korea had had a large stockpile of tests and trained contact teams (lessons learnt from their SARS outbreak) or like Sweden a well funded and staffed health service they were confident could cope with the outbreak. We didn’t have either so a lockdown was the only sensible choice.

Now is the perfect time, whilst people are cheering and banging pans, to bung a penny on income tax, investment income and dividends to pay for a proper NHS. But I guess the privatization wet dream of the right that caused the starvation of the NHS and indirectly the lockdown will be rolled out again.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
But I guess the privatization wet dream of the right that caused the starvation of the NHS and indirectly the lockdown will be rolled out again.
Maybe it's time to consider an alternative to the left's wet dream of "free at the point of delivery" (like they do in our European neighbours).
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Lot of OAP's would fit into that category for sure. Also, the health service is not 'FREE.' It's paid for by tax/national insurance .. in effect … us. Which is why the right keep sniffing around it because there's a vast pile of money to be had that originates with the general population.
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
Everyone's got a spare tenner. They might say they haven't but you can usually guess by their tattoos or piercings that they probably do have.

I think you should probably go and ask some people who are on benefits to find out if they have. Because not everyone does. We're lucky.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
Lot of OAP's would fit into that category for sure. Also, the health service is not 'FREE.' It's paid for by tax/national insurance .. in effect … us. Which is why the right keep sniffing around it because there's a vast pile of money to be had that originates with the general population.
You seem to know a lot about these things. I've begun to wonder, but say I prang my car - I go into the back of someone. Nothing too nasty. Just some damage to the two cars, plus a broken nose and some damage to my spine resulting in several trips to an NHS chiropractor. Obviously I get stung for the damage to the cars - either I pay for it up front or I put it through insurance and pay the excess and increased premiums - but who pays the NHS for the treatment to my back? Would I get stung for it in some way, or does it all come out of the public purse?
 

rudie111

Well-Known Forumite
We have family in Sweden (Stockholm). Half of the nephew's class are absent from school with symptoms. I know this is only a snapshot of the county as a whole (and a metropolitan city) but it is still a concern non the less
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Well surely the NHS was devised as a sort of non-profit making insurance. Everybody mucks in, and if you live a long healthy life and don't need them much then fine, you've paid for them to be there if you had needed them. Somebody less fortunate gets treatment possibly costing above the amount they've paid in, that's the way of it.

Of course it's expensive, but I note a lot of people are quite willing to pay more tax, providing that extra goes to the NHS. And that's the rub, it's difficult with politicians to know where the money is going.
 
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