Young more open to health insurance
IT’S no surprise to have it confirmed by our new opinion poll that a clear majority of people in Wales still believes in an NHS that provides treatment which is free at the point of delivery.
What is perhaps surprising is that younger people are less inclined than older ones to reject an alternative option that would involve paying for private health insurance.
When politicians talk about “British values”, it is sometimes difficult to discern what is uniquely British about the examples they cite.
The NHS, however, and the concept of free health treatment that is at its heart, is something we can all be proud of – and all the more so because it was founded by a Welshman, Aneurin Bevan, who adapted it from a local scheme in his constituency.
The principle that everyone deserves free health treatment as a matter of course, regardless of their wealth or social status, is one that most of us support because it is morally right.
We only have to look at the patchy provision of health treatment in the United States, where it is ability to pay that counts, to understand what a huge benefit we enjoy thanks to the NHS. Yet it would be wrong to ignore the funding challenges facing our health service.
When Bevan founded the NHS 70 years ago, people didn’t live as long and many expensive health treatments we now take for granted were unheard of.
The NHS needs more and more money year on year so it can provide the kind of top quality service patients expect.
It won’t be long before the NHS accounts for more than 50% of the Welsh Government’s entire budget. Without an uplift in overall income that currently isn’t on the cards, it will be necessary to cut other departmental budgets if the NHS is to get the money it needs to treat patients and pay staff reasonably.
Earlier this year a report produced jointly be three think tanks based at Cardiff University set out in stark detail the Welsh Government’s financial challenge, and made the point that if austerity policies continue, unpopular choices will have to be made. Up until now, it has been politically unacceptable for any party to advocate ending the NHS as a service which provides treatment that is free at the point of access. Even in Ukip’s heyday, Nigel Farage was quick to distance himself from earlier comments that appeared to indicate support for compulsory private health insurance. Nevertheless, there seems little doubt that if we are to retain a free NHS we need economic growth to provide the tax revenues it requires.
How ironic it would be if Brexit – which is happening partly because of a false promise to provide extra funding for the NHS – ended up damaging the UK economy to the extent that we could no longer afford to keep the health service going in the form we recognise. It would be at that point the debate would come to focus laser-like on the type of funding the NHS would need to sustain a service of which we can all continue to be proud of.