We need to raise taxes to fund our care needs | Letters

Until the debilitating myth of private good / public doubtful is scotched, we will not reach square one, says Bernard Cummings, and privatisation of the NHS must be ended, says Valerie Crews

The obvious answer to saving the NHS is to train and recruit more care workers in both the NHS and social care – which would not only (alone) meet current crying care needs but provide good professional human-interface jobs in the coming hi-tech age (killing two currently worrying birds with one stone). This does, however, mean raising more public revenue by getting people to pay more taxes.

But to achieve this we must first counter the common idea that providing something that people want, and raising the revenue to provide it by appropriate pricing, is a clear case of “positive wealth creation” if done in the private sector – not only creating wealth for the sector in question (which may be private healthcare, as in the US) but stimulating activity in the rest of the economy – but is simply a “negative burden” if done in the public sector.

Continue reading... January 09, 2018 at 12:36AM