Conclusion: The Price of Demand-Side Socialism in Health and Social Care

This concluding chapter begins with a question; that of whether the reader likes what they see, currently, in terms of a disintegration of collectively funded health care systems. If the answer is ‘no’ but that there is nothing to be done, the forecast is one of the emergence of multi-tier systems whereby those able and willing to pay receive better and quicker care. This may go even further in the sense of such groups articulating a case for tax breaks to help fund their march into the private sector. Encouraged by several vested interests, that case might even be made (naively and erroneously) on the basis of helping out the NHS. In fact, it would constitute robbing the NHS of staff who could otherwise have been publicly funded and used to treat people according to their needs. The latter is the alternative prescription; a collectively funded system designed to overcome the excesses and unfairness of market failure and even extending this into social care. This applies globally, too. We need to encourage accelerated implementation of Universal Health Coverage. Coming back to the UK and other advanced economies, a reset is required whereby the tax consequences of what is proposed are explained to and supported by the public. What may seem like a cost is actually an investment in avoiding greater costs and unfairness in the future; an investment In Place of Fear 2.0.