London's Burning

[DanaC]

See, the problem with that argument is that it doesn't take account of the many, many times that governments have (and are currently doing again) taken on the mantra of anti-welfare state economists and tried to cut back the system in ways that cut support whilst actually costing more. We've had countless schemes and revamps to the system that have made it less effective at getting help to where help is needed and also more costly to administrate.

What we lose to people playing the benefit system is a drop in the ocean compared to what we lose to the wealthiest tax payers not paying the tax they're supposed to pay. What we recover from the malingerer who's made his back injury stretch three years beyond the actual effects of injury whilst working cash in hand on the side, is as nothing compared to what it cost to root him out.

Much of the worst waste in the NHS, to take an example, has been in the administration layer that had to be added to try and knit together the fragmented health services borne of attempts to bring in the private sector. The fucking scams that came in under the guise of the free market were unbelievable.

Now, I don't actually have an objection to the free market. I see it as basically quite a positive thing for the most part. There are a few areas of life I feel are better served by socialised solutions and healthcare is one of them. But, whatever your view on healthcare, socialised or privatised, what's abosolutely needed is a sense of cohesion and efficiency, and whether it's profits or targets that drive the process, the direction needs to be towards better care and treatment. What doesn't help that is trying to cobble together an unholy mess of private and public where the lines of division are not very clear and where all the money leaks into either governing the meeting points of the two, or through outright scamming of the system.

It wasn't the socialised medicine that cost so much the past twenty years it was the cackhanded attempts to mould it into something it's not.

The changes to benefits are another classic example of British politicians attempting to import US solutions to a British setting and just failing miserably, because what's actually needed are British solutions, tailored to a British setting and culture.