Our healthcare spending is not high relative to similar sized economies, so I don't think it's that...

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Honestly, Covid is the best thing that could have happened for Brexit - as this thread proves, it's a ready-made excuse to buy those responsible considerably more time as to why it hasn't been what they said it would.

And for people who want Brexit to succeed, it's easier to accept that excuse than to consider that they may have been sold a dud.

In most of those countries there is a considerable injection of cash from the private elements of the healthcare systems. They are not directly comparable with the UK unless you include all the BUPA type monies.

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

The article addresses that:

"Countries differ not just in overall health spending but in the mix of funding sources – government spending vs ‘other’ (ie out of pocket, voluntary insurance and charity). In the UK, 79.9% of health spending is government funded (average 2010–2019), compared with 76.5% across the EU14. On average UK government health spending between 2010 and 2019 was £149bn per year in current terms.

With the UK’s mix of government and other health spending, matching the EU14 annual spending per person average between 2010 and 2019 would have meant £31.8bn of additional government funding each year. If the UK had the same spending mix as the EU14, additional UK government spending would have been slightly lower at £30.5bn. So the significant difference in spending between the UK and other countries applies to both total and government spending."

It goes to show that the NHS is poor value for money when you look at medical outcomes in many categories.

I would love to see an efficient NHS with good outcomes, that needs a combination of adequate finding, good management and more emphasis on health and lifestyle choices. For example, addressing the obesity pandemic.

Just throwing more money is not the long term answer. IF people have access to private medical care then encourage them to use it, don't abuse them for it.

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

Well it firstly shows the suggestion that the failure of our economy to recover to pre-pandemic levels is linked to spending in healthcare is incorrect.

It also shows that this latest myth that we spend ridiculous amounts on healthcare and we can't keep increasing the funding is a nonsense - we don't spend as much as comparable countries.