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Originally Posted by Damien
Doesnt that create a two teir system?
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Yeah and that's the point. Two produce two smallish queues, rather than just one big one.
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Although most people cannot afford to go private full stop. This will not bring people who do not go private now to go private. It will simply make those who go private now pay less by taking the money out of the NHS.
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Getting thousands of pounds towards private treatment will make treatment affordable to much more. What doesn't make it affordable is paying twice, in NI contributions and in full private fees. You make a fair point in that richer people can theoretically get off the private treatment they'd get anyway. Well, why not? They paid for it. An improvement on the idea would be to means-test the contribution, which I think the Tories did mention at one point but appear to have dropped. Means testing is fair enough (for me anyway)
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The idea that loads upon loads of people will go private after this cannot be backed up. Its will come down to £1 Billion pounds taken from the NHS to help pay for peoples private operations without a big dent in waiting times
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That's what Labour is worried about, that the NHS can't afford to foot a massive immeadiate bill, that has to be settled in weeks, rather than years for thousands to suddenly jump out of the middle of one queue onto another, exposing how woefully under funded its legacy is. They mask it with this class war stuff. Tories say they can fund it through greater efficiency in the NHS, which few people disagree with.