Tory social care plans

[Fambo Number Mive]

I was astonished how low NI rates are for those earning over £50k. Although we do need far more funding in social care, this looks like a way of making the working and lower middle class pay the most. Making the super-rich pay or a land tax would be a fairer way, but the Tory party cannot upset the rich.

It's laughable how Tory MP after Tory MP has lined up to lick Johnson's fetid little arse and claim Labour has given no alternative - when for once Kier has proposed an alternative, I can't remember what it is though.

Labour are trapped - if they vote against, Johnson will claim they don't support increasing funding for health and social care. If they vote for, they will be voting for raising taxes on the low-paid. This is one reason why setting out clear alternative policies would have helped Kier, he could have said "As I've mentioned before, Labour policy would be to do x,y and z, which would be fairer to people on low incomes and ensure the rich pay their fare share."

Perhaps it would be fairer for Labour to vote yes but call for a reform of National Insurance? It seems like the major problem is how unfair NI is - why is it only 2% on earning above £50,000? Raise it to 14% on earnings above £50,000 and lower the NI contributions for those earning under £20,000 - 1% or something. Could Kier introduce a National Insurance Reform Bill?

[Shit Good Nose]

One option would be to make certain self-employed people pay the same as everyone else - I work with several self-employed consultants who are clearing £60-80K a year, but they all - legitimately - pay just £1.52 NI a month.  I also know of someone who managed to pay £2 a year for several years after exploiting various (legal) loopholes, although he wasn't earning anywhere near £60-80K. 

Appreciate and acknowledge that shouldn't (and can't) be applied to all self-employed folk.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Conservative Julie Marson came up with this choice comment:

Making sure the NHS is not "some sort of insatiable beast" that keeps demanding funds "is something we need to keep a grip on" she adds, and the extra investment must be accompanied by innovation.

Yes, funny how healthcare keeps costing money especially at the moment isn't it Julie? A former corporate banker, she voted against an Opposition Day Motion to extend free school meals in England until Easter 2021. One wonders what "innovation" she had in mind.

[bgmnts]

We need to make sure our nationalised healthcare get's as little funding as possible.

Standard tory twat take.

[olliebean]

Making sure the NHS is not "some sort of insatiable beast" that keeps demanding funds "is something we need to keep a grip on" she adds, and the extra investment must be accompanied by innovation.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the reason behind this NI rise is nothing to do with how much money the NHS needs, or is likely to get, and everything to do with making the NHS seem like some sort of insatiable beast that keeps demanding funds directly out of our wage packets, so as to soften us up for gradually replacing it with an insurance based system. Already Johnson has let slip that the social care plans are about making it easier for private insurance to fund social care.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Are insurance based systems what they have in some other European countries? I can imagine Johnson wanting to go for full on US style healthcare, the Tory endgame on health.

"Sorry, you'll have to pay £1000 extra for your bowel operation, Mr Fuckmybottom, your healthcare provider Grimescorp won't cover it. What's that? You'll vote Labour next year? Ah, Mr Fuckmybottom, we got rid of elections earlier this month, please report to your local Serco re-education centre for an unpaid re-education week."

[Fambo Number Mive]

I see Amazon have paid £492m in UK tax on sales of £20.6bn. Looks like we could get a lot more money out of the likes of them without squeezing the working and lower middle class.

[Zetetic]

Are insurance based systems what they have in some other European countries? I can imagine Johnson wanting to go for full on US style healthcare, the Tory endgame on health.

"Insurance-based" isn't a very useful term, really.

My understanding is that you've got:
1) systems like the NHS in Wales and Scotland where the government runs a national health service as a public service. The "providers" of health care are part of the state.

2) systems like Germany and much of Europe where everyone is required by law to obtain insurance, most people are insured by a state-backed insurer, not everyone has to pay to be insured, and the providers of health care are mostly a mix of non-profits and state-owned.

3) systems like the US where most people are in the position of choosing (in as much as that word makes sense here) whether or not to obtain health insurance, mostly from private insurers, and the providers of health care are mostly a mix of profit-making private companies and non-profits.

1 is sometimes referred to as the "Beveridge" model, 2 is sometimes referred to as the "Bismarck" model. Both of these are sometimes described as resulting in "universal healthcare".

You can have more or less explicit state involvement in the mandatory insurance schemes in 2 - sometimes insurance is simply a matter of being taxed and almost no one has private insurance on top of that. The NHS in England is a little bit like this and was more so pre-pandemic - this is what the "internal market" and "any willing provider" stuff was about - but is mostly still 1.

[Captain Z]

Hope he pulls through.

[Zetetic]

As an aside, Germany's healthcare system has about eleventy-billion more resources and capacity per head than any part of the UK's and yet - based on recent second-hand experiences - seems to be considerably more disjointed, incompetent and reliant on patients coordinating their own care.

(They do seem to be big on quackery in Germany as well - one of those things where Germans suddenly strike me as being like the British, only more so.)

[Fambo Number Mive]

Gone through with majority of 71, Labour amendment voted down.

[popcorn]

can someone summarise in plain English what these new tax changes actually are? I'm struggling.

edit: BBC has a guide. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58473787

[Goldentony]

can someone summarise in plain English what these new tax changes actually are? I'm struggling.

great news for those with generational wealth

[Cloud]

Classic Tory stuff then, same as we've had for the past 11 years.  "Oh no we're going through Hard Times (like at any time on Planet Earth with a Y in the day), time for the lowest paid people in our country to tighten their belts"

And yet the majority keep voting for them.  Mental

[Quote]

The Beeb told me last night that our nation's finances were suddenly 'constricted' which was weird as I vividly recalled just last year when anyone who went to public school with a Tory minister or owned a chippy in the vicinity of them was given vast amounts of public money for wacky covid-related schemes that failed to deliver.

[JamesTC]

Cunts. Utter cunts. CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS CUNTS.

[Fishfinger]

Guess: at the next election, Tories will campaign on reducing NI, putting Labour in a tight spot. In a reversal of the way they cut nurses and police in office, then campaigned on increasing their numbers.

[Jittlebags]

Wonder how this is going to pan out for Wales and Scotland. From what I understand, this is a UK increase, so what do Scotland and Wales get out of it? Unless the increase is dished out to the devolved governments pro rata, it'll be a bit of a rum do.

[olliebean]

The real cuntery of it is, they don't actually even need to take money from poor people to give to their rich friends and donors. The last 18 months has showed they can just magic it up out of thin air if they want to; a perk of having a fiat currency. Likewise, they could easily magic up money to give the NHS for social care. But instead, they've chosen to take it from the pockets of the working poor. It's just deliberate, needless cruelty.

[Zetetic]

Wonder how this is going to pan out for Wales and Scotland. From what I understand, this is a UK increase, so what do Scotland and Wales get out of it? Unless the increase is dished out to the devolved governments pro rata, it'll be a bit of a rum do.

Barnett formula, apparently for the whole lot so it'll breakdown roughly -
£1.1bn for Scotland
£0.7bn for Wales
£0.4bn for Northern Ireland

(Thought they might try a fiddle with the "UK" Health Security Agency stuff, apparently not - not as part of this anyway.)

[Sebastian Cobb]

Barnett formula, apparently for the whole lot so it'll breakdown like -
£1.1bn for Scotland
£0.7bn for Wales
£0.4bn for Northern Ireland

There's an interesting point leading on from this and what I suspect Jittlebags was driving at, is it takes a national tax and gives more money to devolved regions (disproportionately to Scotland) but as the BBC claim[nb]"What does Boris Johnson's tax rise mean for Scotland and social care?" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58473158[/nb] "Raising National Insurance Contributions feeds a big increase in funding for Holyrood but also breaches an important convention over not "directing" where devolved money is spent.".

Digging deeper on that[nb]"National Insurance: What's the new Health and Social Care tax and how will it affect me?" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58436009[/nb]:

What happens in the rest of the UK?
In Wales, no-one who is eligible for care at home is expected to pay more than £100 a week.

In Northern Ireland, no-one over the age of 75 pays for home care.

Scotland provides free personal care for people who are assessed as needing support at home, whatever their age.

In Scottish care homes, people get free care if they have savings or assets of less than £18,000.

Those with savings and assets of between £18,000 and £28,750 have to fund part of their care.

People with more than that have to fund their own care, apart from a £193.50 a week contribution towards personal care and £87.10 a week towards nursing care.

[gib]

Barnett formula

a true cockney won't wash their hair with any other shampoo

[Zetetic]

"Raising National Insurance Contributions feeds a big increase in funding for Holyrood but also breaches an important convention over not "directing" where devolved money is spent.".

This is an exciting talking point for political journalists but practically irrelevant given existing spending. It's only of actual significance if Holyrood decides that it wants to shutdown NHS Scotland.

Which probably means it'll become a major talking point.

[Sebastian Cobb]

This is an exciting talking point for political journalists but practically irrelevant given existing spending. It's only of actual significance if Holyrood decides that it wants to shutdown NHS Scotland.

Which probably means it'll become a major talking point.

I think it might go beyond being a 'talking point' based on how The SNP have managed council tax, and what that meant in terms of council assets:


Posted graph because for fear of a tedious exchange if I lazily used shorthand and called it a 'freeze'.

[Zetetic]

They can compensate for the NI change if they want given the income tax controls, can't they? It's not the same.

[Sebastian Cobb]

They can compensate for the NI change if they want given the income tax controls, can't they?

How likely do you think that will be when it can be considered a talking point about westminster doing things "we" don't want?

[Zetetic]

Low, hence why I think it'll probably be a major talking point.

[Cloud]

Edit: I'm tired and done a derp

Still, I could believe them reducing Northern Ireland (to a forgotten nowhere because they were inconvenient for Brexit)

[Paul Calf]

Increasing taxes and cutting spending is what you do during a socioeconomic crisis...

















...if you want that crisis to drag on as long as possible.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Classic Tory stuff then, same as we've had for the past 11 years.  "Oh no we're going through Hard Times (like at any time on Planet Earth with a Y in the day), time for the lowest paid people in our country to tighten their belts"

And yet the majority keep voting for them.  Mental

It's not the majority who do - in the last election only 43.6% of those who voted voted for the Tories (in fairness only 32.1% of those who voted voted for Labour). Turnout was 67.3%. I make that 29.34% of the voting age public who voted for the Tories in 2019.

I think part of the issue is getting the just under 1/3 of the country that doesn't vote, and that FPTP allows an 80 seat majority for a party so few people voted for.