Have you tried to find an NHS dentist recently? The situation has eased - at least round here. And a side effect of this are all the private ones screaming for business. Which brings a smile to my face.
Yes, but, if - say - you wanted to tax car USAGE there is a very simple way.
Tax fuel.
Or tax rubbish. Easy. surcharge on every box sold - cardboard box. And on every product as a proportion of VAT.
If you actually wanted to xa usage its a piece of piss.
However governements don't. They want more revenues from the most law abiding meek people who actually earn salaries, and in the case of labour they want to confiscate property as well by taxing ASSESTS.
This requires very dumb electorate, but that's easily accomplished with a state indoctrination system comprising state schools, the BBC and Polly Toynbee.
Untrue of rubbish, and car usage, by and large.
And, if they didnt get the medical attention, would eventually be untrue of that, as well!
Simples!
It shouldn't. Since my niece is a dentist who does both. What the NHS will pay for is in her words 'a barbaric disgrace'
The best way to make money on the NHS, is by repeated unnecessary fillings with low grade crap, followed by an extraction when the whole rotting edifice falls apart.
Then a useless ill fitting plate of the cheapest material can be supplied, and more money made out of replacing it every few months.
Can't think why. The concept of an "NHS Dentist" is a bit of a joke really, since everyone in the end needs dental treatment of one sort or another. They appeared to be paid for extractions, so that's what they did, never minding prevention. It's what got British dentistry such a crap reputation in other countries I've lived in.
Oh, such a system already exists and provides much of what we all consume.
It's called the free market.
If you were not as successful as you presumably are, couldn't afford medical insurance and needed an expensive operation - would you still say it was fair?
How do you balance being fair on an individual basis with being fair as a society?
You can't.
Thus we get to the nub of the problem. Ther's no absolutely right answer. My preference is towards a good provision of basics via taxes with free market for non essentials.
To go back to the TV argument, if the BBC must exist - given the majority of UK inhabitants use it (albeit it is is not exactly an *essential* service) - and it is a fixed cost for those that do - it we might as well scrap the license and all the overheads that go with it and stick it on tax.
Mine too. Where we differ is what "basics" means. It certainly doesn't mean confiscating half my income to provide TV for people.
The BBC is definitely not a basic and should be a subscription service.
It's a propaganda service for the Government. With a couple of entertaining programmes on it to keep people listening.
It actually does quite a good job on our behalf overseas.
It appears to be a propaganda service for Hamas, AFAICS.
If you mean the World Service, that was funded by the Home Office, not from the license fee. Not any more.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, rather than the Home Office.
:-)
Troo. And don't call me Shirley.
Even in the darkest days of Soviet Russia, the state didn't produce all of the food.
Food and water are essential. So's housing and clothing. Imagine the State providing all of that. Like in the Soviet era, it'll be all about production. Yes, we made 20 million shoes last year but they are all left-foot.
I would subscribe to R4 and nothing else. Possibly PAYG for TV, there is f*ck-all on telly these days.
Furrin Office, Shirley.
But, dear boy, why ever not? It's such fun!
The BBC is not 'basics'. The problem with "being fair as a society" is the mission creep: one man's non-essential is another's necessity. So we end up with a sense that all these things 'provided free' are not quite wise or value for money but it's impossible to untangle the real cost of anything. Too many unnecessary frills are added to basic services: they benefit the producers not the customer.
Re. the fire service, I expect you'll have seen this:
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