Rachel Reeves urged to apply VAT to private healthcare in bid to fund NHS
https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/vat-private-healthcare-rachel-reeves-kinnock-nhs/?amp
Posted by Galacticmetrics
Rachel Reeves urged to apply VAT to private healthcare in bid to fund NHS
https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/vat-private-healthcare-rachel-reeves-kinnock-nhs/?amp
Posted by Galacticmetrics
37 Comments
Yay
I can not access the NHS services I pay for through my tax so have to pay again for private healthcare and now I get to pay for vat as well
What a treat
Market is valued at £12-13bn, 20% of that, which is hilariously generous because you won’t make 20% of the value of the entire industry is £2-3bn, or…about 2-3% of the NHS budget.
So no it won’t “fund” the NHS. If anything it’ll increase demand on the NHS because less people will be able to afford the alternative, but like VAT on private schools “fuck the rich” vibes are more important than the maths. And like VAT on private schools the UK would be a massive outlier internationally
The NHS budget is over 200bn a year. I’m not sure where you would get an authorative answer on social care spending with how the system is spread across multiple layers of government, but Google says it’s over 30bn a year.
Raising 2bn from taxing Bupa insurance (which is already taxed anyway) will make absolutely fuck-all difference to anything. It won’t even cover the annual inflationary rise.
This is ridiculous let my guess they will frame this as a tax againt the rich when in actually fact there are loads of people that go private due the long waiting list. So if you make to more expensive it will probably make things worse for the NHS
Someone explain to me. Why do I pay partial amount for NHS dentist and not my local GP
Only if services the NHS refuses to fund adequately are exempted. Having to pay 20% VAT on top to get around insane seven year wait times which will almost certainly not go to funding the services I need would just be insult to injury.
People will start going abroad for treatment. A lot of countries have better health systems than the uk nowadays
We could fix a few loopholes that the old millionaires and billionaires have been using to avoid tax.
We could look into do we need that many mayors?
We could look into academies solution for schools as now they have administrators in charge of three schools who all make three figures giving each school less funding to run and still funded by the government.
If this happens I’m leaving the UK (as a high bracket tax payer). NHS has never helped with anything significant and it never will.
Utterly horrific and should be thrown out and as far from anyone as possible.
Anyone agrees to slapping VAT on healthcare is utterly deplorable. If you all did not insist on using the NHS as a left right ping pong ball and the majority of you voting for parties against yourself. Then this would not be an issue of your making. Private healthcare would not be needed if you as a people utterly destroyed the careers of any of the politicians rubbing their grubby mitts over whey they can get out of it.
Yet here is a not small part of the public laughing in glee that Reform will fix it when in reality it will be sold off in the first year.
Very careful use of language here – part of what is being advocated for is people paying 20% more to see a dentist. I live in a NHS dentistry black hole – after living in pain finally stumped up the £2,000 to have both wisdom teeth out, X-rays and fillings.
Labour would like to make that £2,400.
why are the poor the only ones to pay tax on everything?
The middle class sometimes going private is the only thing stopping the NHS from itself imploding.
My in laws did it twice this year, rather pay £1000 to get treated now than wait 18 months
Where exactly does she think we are going to find the money to pay more tax? Everything is cut to the bone, my budget has so more give. I am going to be forced to skip healthcare American style since NHS basically doesn’t exist round here. I’m fucked, I guess I’ll learn to love poverty.
Not even Rachel Reeves is stupid enough to listen to this advice.
That’s about the logic you’d expect from Labour.
Tax private healthcare to fund the NHS.
Taxation deters people from using private healthcare meaning they continue using the NHS, increasing the pressure on it. People using private healthcare are diverting pressure from the NHS.
Also, the NHS needs to be more efficient. Employ more nurses and fewer managers. That organisation swallows money for fun and no matter how much they have, they’ll want more.
Here’s an example. I sat in a major hospital for weeks on over £400 a night in case their mains supply failed. I had to manually change over to the generator supply if it did. The reason for this is that they didn’t want to spend a few thousand pounds repairing the auto changer system and were seeking quotes from other suppliers. Save a penny, spend a pound.
I had a very nice holiday off the back of that. Thank you NHS.
Great, so I’m already paying for an NHS that won’t treat my rare health condition, and now they’re proposing taxing me for going elsewhere. While reducing the disability benefits that pay for the private healthcare I need because the NHS won’t treat me. Yeah this will get the disabled back into work instead of making things worse. 10/10 idea.
What better way to increase waiting lists and make the NHS even worse, than to start financially penalising everyone opting to pay for their own healthcare…just so you can throw some more loose change into the bottomless well to see if that fixes the NHS. Genius.
More envy economics
This is madness. Unsurprisingly it will back fire.
A sales tax. On. Healthcare
Good lord
Im against that for the same reason I think period products should be VAT free.
Nah fuck that, fuck that with a fucking barge pole. We’re already taxed to fuck for terrible services in this country, it’s a joke that people are having to shell out for private healthcare just to get treated. ^(Fuck.)
The lump on my back (not cancer )
It won’t be touched by the nhs as it’s not dangerous
It hurts at night when i sleep
If i pay private to get it removed £250
Do nothing and suffer or pay for treatment the same week
It’s a no-brainer for me anyway
Surely that’s stupid because that will disincentivise people seeking private health care, putting even more pressure on the NHS. I’m going private because I can’t access treatment on the NHS which i am already paying NI for and now I’m effectively having to pay twice for the treatment. This country is broken.
If anything they should be making private healthcare more appealing to draw people away from the NHS, not making it more expensive.
The number of attacks this Labour govt is throwing at different groups of people is insane. At this rate everyone will want to leave the UK.
This seems like a pretty natural extension of the logic that put VAT on private schools, and the people who can afford to opt out of the NHS are exactly the kind of people who can eat the extra tax.
Maybe they can introduce fines for missed appointments that’ll pay for the NHS
What blew my mind was someone mentioned private jets are exempt
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It’d be OK if people were not going private due to issues accessing NHS facilities in a timely manner, or at all. The logic is the wrong way round, the NHS has to improve first or all it does is result in worse outcomes and a less productive populace. Healthy people pay more tax and need less state intervention. Its the old treasury brain that only understands cost rather than potential for return on investment, we’re fucked with minds like that in number 11. George Osborn never left.
Right so the people urging Reeves are Kinnock and one think tank.
I think we can all calm down and read the article.
-raises prices on private VAT to fund the NHS
-people who were otherwise willing to not use the NHS now use the NHS to avoid paying much greater prices
-NHS waiting lists go up, VAT income generated either goes into the bottomless pit of NHS middle management costs or somewhere else in inefficient government spending
Bravo Rachel!
I feel this might have the impact of people not using private health care, putting more pressure on the NHS. if anything I’d like it be the case that people earning 10x the national average income (300k) have to pay for private health care.
As private healthcare lobbying money fell like rain onto our mps.
Today 20% VAT on private healthcare. Tomorrow everyone in the NHS gets an additional 2% pay rise. Year after that: no more money for pay rises!
At what point do we not just admit the “precious” NHS is a failure and stop applying B&M discount plasters to it?
What a shit cesspool if crap economists, policymakers and borris Johnson’s run this country man fuck this shit
Bet this includes dentists ,we’d love an nhs dentist but government have fucked it for most people