Health care

I had an interesting discussion with my mum earlier today about the NHS.

For background, my mum had an aneurysm at Christmas and was admitted to hospital. She was stuck in there for a few weeks while they did scans and decided what to do, then once they'd decided on an operation there were more than a few delays but she eventually had her op and all went well.

We were discussing the changes coming up to the national lottery, and one of her reservations was around the "good causes" that lottery money is sent to. She suggested that it could instead be funnelled to the NHS. I had to disagree.

My mum was quite surprised to hear how much we all currently pay for the NHS (last time I did the maths it was around £2,000 per taxpayer per year -  a little over £150 per month).

My problem with the NHS is not that it's not a good thing, but that it's not efficient and has no need to be. This is one reason I'm all for the idea of competition within the NHS. I'd rather go further though.

The best system I've heard of is the Singaporean one. Everyone pays their NI equivalent into a special account.   If you need serious treatment (such as for cancer, etc) then the government pays, and most other medical costs are taken from your special account. If there's anything left in it when you reach retirement age, you can use the money to buy a pension. This way people who need something can get it, but it discourages frivolous uses of the health service (by making people aware of the cost) while driving efficiency (through competition - if a new clinic will charge less, people will use it).