this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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In the UK the cost of healthcare is included in a tax called National Insurance, it's about 10% of wages. It can be thought of mostly as emergency use only. Mental health and minor ailments are not treated. If you want that kind of service you need to go private and most people cannot afford that so they go untreated. I know a newly qualified doctor who cannot find a job despite there being a shortage of doctors.
On the plus side, we do have a brand new aircraft carrier and a royal family.
Your royal family isn't brand new.
They say it's a thousand years old and have no intention of changing anything. It makes sense because the world hardly changed since 927 so they might as well keep going with the same schtick.
It doesn't really matter, but worth knowing, only a small amount of your national insurance goes toward NHS costs. The NHS is primarily funded by general taxation. Your National Insurance contributions largely go to paying for state pensions.
That's an excellent point, state pensions are a significant burden, particularly police. We need to look after those guys so they can continue to prosecute the unwinnable war on drugs.
As an American, that's a way higher tax than I expected. Does everyone pay it, even people earning under a certain threshold? In the US we have social security and Medicare that everyone has to pay.
If you earn under ยฃ1,048 a month you don't pay.
Earn ยฃ1,048 to ยฃ4,189 a month is 12%
Over ยฃ4,189 a month is 2%.
That's not a typo.