Redistribution of wealth is the answer to problems in the NHS - Yorkshire Post Letters

The NHS is at a crossroads, and only plain talking can now be acceptable. Some say that you cannot solve crises by throwing money at them; in this case, that is precisely what is needed. But, say others, the country is broke and there is no magic money tree. So let us examine some basic economic facts, and see where that leads.

75 years ago the NHS was founded on the basis of free care for those who need it, financed from general taxation; that is still appropriate, and to face the enormous elephant in the room, the extra funding can only come from extra taxation. ‘Are you seriously proposing,’ ask my opponents, ‘That in these times of economic stricture, the government should actually increase the tax burden on hard-pressed British workers?’

No, I am not. I am asking for the recognition of a few basic realities: 1. The amount of nominal tax which is still dodged (evaded or avoided, it is equally uncollected) is enormous. 2. The gap between the lowest paid and the highest paid in this country has continually widened throughout those 75 years and now stands at Victorian proportions. 3. The numbers of UK billionaires and multi-millionaires are at record levels and growing almost hourly.

Even Adam Smith, the great eighteenth century architect of the free market, declared (in “The Wealth of Nations”) that: “It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”

The public finances of this nation may be currently hard-pressed, but its overall wealth is greater than it has ever been; all that we lack is the political will to restore the distribution back to reasonable levels.