Posts from other threads led me to want to post this question. <crickets> This thread concerns The Welfare State but it encompasses all manner of things like a state pension, a health service, etc. I am assuming that some things remain in public control or ownership - law & order, the armed forces and such. However, if you want to suggest alternatives to those, have at it. Should there be a state pension or should all such financial planning be left to individuals? Should there be a national health service of any kind? If yes, what should be included as a freely provided service - life saving care, mental health care, a GP service? An ambulance service? Should there be social services caring for - the aged, the infirm, children? Should there be publicly-provided housing? Should there be a state benefits system? Should there be an unemployment benefit system? There have been suggestions that society as currently constructed cannot provide the level of welfare currently provided. What do you cut? The amount you spend? The kind of services you provide? If you want to start cutting deeply, what do you do with the bodies that will pile up with every cold winter? Do you want to go back to a "Darwinist society" or are you uncomfortable with this idea? People talk about cutting public expenditure, they grumble about single mums of school age, they complain about waiting times for hospital appointments, they are fed up with Benefits Street/benefit culture. Now's your chance - what stays, what goes, in terms of public spending? No woolly statements, please It's no good saying, "I want an NHS but they should stop wasting money." Tell us what you want done.
It's rare for audience members on BBC Question Time to be sharp enough to put politicians in their place, but this man said it all I think:
Yes to each and very question. But, they should all be a safety net and not a lifestyle choice. The question should be how do you fund it sustainably and how do you get from where we are today to that point without the whole lot coming crashing down around our ears. And the answer to that question; I have no fucking idea. However we can start with getting rid of the assumption that the state is here to provide for us from the cradle to the grave.
The rest of the civilised world gets on quite nicely without a national health service. I don't understand why brits are so precious about it.
I think a pre requisite for a civilised society is a National Health Service, the only question is what services it provides and how it is funded.
A shrewd man. His comment about the welfare safety net being transform - deliberately - into a fishing net has the socialist ideal absolutely skewered.
Rather than hyperbole... Something is wrong with the system that supports working aged men, in good health who choose not to work as they get more on benefits than working. At least three drink regularly in my local and have not worked for at least five years. Around Heathrow there should be zero unemployment, 100% unskilled jobs are advertised each and every week. I think soup kitchens and dorms for single men and women to get them to work. A different what for families with children, but I'm not sure what.
