So they spend slightly more than double what they did in 1955, when the cost of providing healthcare has gone up nearly 4x due to the Beaumol effect. That doesn't seem good? You'd expect the service to gradually get worse in that case, wouldn't you?

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/wh...

Double in GDP terms means a massive increase in real terms because GDP is so much higher now. Our GDP in real terms has increased 5x in that period, so double funding relative to GDP is a 10x real terms increase.

The point from an affordability perspective is, has NHS funding relative to GDP actually fallen since the end of the last labour government? The answer is no, it’s about the same.

Now it’s reasonable to argue we should be spending more of our GDP on health care, but we’re in the middle of a major global inflation crisis. The recent rise in NI which partly funds health care was slated by the left. How is the country going to afford a significant increase in health spending right now?

"worse" in what sense?

Outcomes of serious diseases are probably better in 1955, because science hasn't stood still.

I dunno, people are WAY fatter now. I wouldn't be surprised if it evens out.

So why should the Baumol effect apply so heavily to healthcare? It's true 1 on 1 patient care has limited options to increase productivity, but is that sufficient to explain it?

While we are comparing years. There were probably less people with senior age in 1955 than there are now.

7% is not generous in an international comparison. It's on a par with Lithuania or Costa Rica. Denmark spends 10% on health care, Germany 11.7%, Italy 8.7%. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/e26f669c-en/index.html?i...

The NHS is also under huge pressure because of all the European health care professionals that left after Brexit (you won't read about that in the Telegraph) and the huge number of sick days caused by COVID.

I also feel they are way too quick to dismiss the idea that health issues are related to COVID. When kids were vaccinated against measles the death rate fell not just for measles, but for all infectious diseases. It's probably because measles damages the immune system. It's not unlikely that COVID had long term health effects that we don't yet fully understand, but which are starting to show up in the statistics.

You are mixing figures here, OECD stats are for healthcare expenditures the UK currently spends about 12% of its GDP on healthcare and is aligned with most developed economies.

This is different to NHS funding alone.

Also comparing the UK where healthcare is predominantly a single payer system to countries like Germany isn’t apples to apples. Germany has a multi tiered private-public healthcare system and it’s not single payer.

Good point. But I can't make the numbers add up. If NHS is 7% and total health care is 12% then the NHS is only 58% of health spending, but how does it then make sense to say it's "predominantly single payer"? Looks to me like the private sector has exploded recently as people pay for private health care/insurance to cover the increasing gaps in the NHS coverage. This does nothing for those who are still just on the NHS.

This looks to be backed up by: "Based on trends observed in early estimates of household final consumption expenditure, household spending on outpatient and hospital services, which include self-funded and insurance-funded treatments, grew by 24.5% and 31.3% respectively in 2021." https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

But that link also says that NHS spending is 83% of health spending, so like I said I can't get the numbers to add up.

Because there are other things that go into healthcare that are accounted for in NHS funding such as hospices and elderly care.

The 83% in your link is the government spending on healthcare as % of total healthcare expenditure not the NHS budget as % of total expenditure.

The government funds other healthcare related expenses that aren’t direct NHS funding.

Perhaps for some reason your friends are disproportionately feckless cowards? I've met zero people in my life who have any fear of criticizing health systems, public or private. Perhaps the people I've met are just unusually heroic.

And so your aunt is currently able to purchase a higher quality of care because she has the money to do so? And this is an option for all moneyed citizens of the UK?

While I'm not a fan of your tone (not that of your parent poster), I agree entirely with the bones of your post. I do not think their experience as stated is anywhere near... universal.

Indeed, I'll admit my tone can get quite peevish after reading for the Nth time about how people are being silenced (note the irony there). It's nothing other than trying to create a victim/persecution complex to sell your point of view and it's an intellectually low tactic.

You wouldn't know, would you, with an attitude like that? Look at this thread. "The NHS is a national religion" is a cliché because it's true. There are loads of comments saying people are irrational about it. The country has too many people who melt down and viciously attack anyone who tells the truth - the NHS is a crap idea, always was and needs to be abolished. Go canvassing in the North with that idea and see what happens.