Do the UK statistics include all the NHS provision? If I paid for all my healthcare over my life I'd have needed twice the income I had. Or is NHS consumption tallied as zero 'cos that's the over-the-counter price paid?
That's an excellent point. I've made it a number of times about wealth. That everyone in hteUK gets a free lifetime of health care. This costs the system £250k (-ish, on average) so everyone in the UK has £250k of wealth. But we don't count it.
It has also occured to me that something similar might happen about income. Several of the European systems for example, if your income is low they'll pay your insurance premiums for you. Is that counted as income for the poverty level reasons? If it is then that will understate poverty relative to the way we do it - free health care and defoo not cuonted for poverty level reasons.
You've reminded me that for some weeks now I've been - very vaguely, which is why the reminder is good - pondering whether to try to find this out......
Do the UK statistics include all the NHS provision? If I paid for all my healthcare over my life I'd have needed twice the income I had. Or is NHS consumption tallied as zero 'cos that's the over-the-counter price paid?
That's an excellent point. I've made it a number of times about wealth. That everyone in hteUK gets a free lifetime of health care. This costs the system £250k (-ish, on average) so everyone in the UK has £250k of wealth. But we don't count it.
It has also occured to me that something similar might happen about income. Several of the European systems for example, if your income is low they'll pay your insurance premiums for you. Is that counted as income for the poverty level reasons? If it is then that will understate poverty relative to the way we do it - free health care and defoo not cuonted for poverty level reasons.
You've reminded me that for some weeks now I've been - very vaguely, which is why the reminder is good - pondering whether to try to find this out......