Unless more people pay for their own healthcare, the NHS will collapse
SIR – Your leading article (March 18) is right in stating that more taxation is not the answer to the rising costs of health and social care.
The lazy reaction of Labour and too many Conservative MPs is to call for more resources, requiring even more of taxpayers’ money. This will only drive the NHS to collapse under its ever-increasing costs.
It is essential to consider ways to encourage people to provide for their own health and social care by, among other things, allowing insurance premiums to be tax deductible and/or by issuing vouchers to be used for private treatment. This would relieve pressure on the NHS and make a larger and competitive private sector more likely to develop.
All this will need courage and leadership from politicians. Unfortunately courage, like money, is seriously deficient at present. David Saunders
Sidmouth, Devon SIR – The problem with the NHS is that its purpose is political, not medical.
What this means in practice is that a majority of the population endures rationed healthcare, waiting lists, a shortage of medical treatment, poor cancer care, spiralling costs and doctors suffocated by bureaucracy, for the sake of a minority of people who don’t pay into the system. DSA Murray
Dorking, Surrey
SIR – Like many others approaching retirement age, I have paid taxes of all kinds for the past 40-odd years and will continue to do so until I die.
Although in good health, I recognise that one day I will take up more of the NHS’s budget than hitherto. If I am to pay more for healthcare (report, March 17), at a time of life when I am most vulnerable but am still paying standard tax, where do I apply for a refund for all the years I cost little? Lynne M Collins
Hadleigh, Essex Business section (March 21) that inflation has fallen to 2.7 per cent.
Why then is my new council tax bill up by 4.75 per cent on last year, and my car tax by 3.7 per cent? Derek Wellman
Lincoln
SIR – I have just received a booklet from Hertfordshire County Council detailing how my council tax has been spent. Nowhere in its 22 pages does it mention the pension costs that have been incurred or the percentage of revenue that these represent.
While most private-sector companies have taken steps to reduce the liability of defined pension schemes, the public sector is allowed to saddle the taxpayer with everincreasing long-term debt.
This unfair burden on future generations must be controlled and the nettle grasped in the very near future in order to avoid serious consequences. John Dickinson
Chipperfield, Hertfordshire