Privatise the NHS!
The Guardian tells us that:
Women in Britain are paying up to £11,154 for a hysterectomy in a private hospital, amid huge delays for NHS gynaecological care, research reveals.
The cost of undergoing the procedure privately has soared by 19% from £7,385 in 2021 to £8,795 last year, at a time when NHS waiting lists have risen sharply.
The disclosure has prompted claims independent sector healthcare providers are taking advantage of long waits for health service treatment by increasing their prices.
Our suggestion here would be that The Guardian undertake that difficult task of trying to employ that mythical beast - the journalist with a grasp of numbers. But, you know….
According to the Bank of England £7,385 in 2021 would, after inflation, be £8,973 in Dec 2024. That’s an inflation rate of 21% (8,973 minus 7,385 is 1,588, divide by the number first thought of, 7,385…). So, private sector prices - on average, obviously - have gone up by less than the general inflation rate. This is not, to put it mildly, evidence of the private sector ripping off the vulnerable and ill as a result of waiting lists in the NHS.
But there’s more! As Polly T, The King’s Fund and all keep reminding us the NHS requires a 4% real rise in budget each year just to stand still. That’s 4% over and above inflation. So, 3 years of 4% is 12% (it isn’t, it is cumulative but we cannot be bothered) so the increase in NHS price, so we’re repeatedly insisted at, would be 33%. Because the NHS requires that 4% real rise, over and above the CPI inflation rate, because Baumol and all that.
According to that general insistence we therefore seem to have a considerable divergence in performance. The private sector here is getting cheaper in real terms, the NHS would be more expensive in real terms. The NHS would be more expensive by about one eighth in just three years. So, obviously, in order to have more healthcare for the same budget, or the same amount for less pillaging of wallets, we must privatise the NHS.
Obviously.
Something that would be apparent to any journalist who had that vague grasp of numbers. Oh, Hello Mr. Campbell (no, not that one).
Now, as it happens we do not, in fact, insist that the NHS is privatised nor that it be flogged off to the lowest bidder. We do though insist that it has to have more competition in it, more use of private contractors. For exactly the reason apparent in the numbers above. Competition - even if all were paid from public tax moneybags - is what increases productivity over time, what therefore brings down the real price of doing anything. As we can see - the private sector is charging less in real terms for a feminine slice and dice than it did three years ago. Huzzah. Now, how do we get the NHS on that same beneficial path?
The health of the nation, the National Health Service. They’re simply too important not to use markets.
Tim Worstall