the cost of the required healthcare as result of climbing accidents or rugby injuries then they would probably be discouraged from participating. A step that could be taken to move towards people paying for the consequences of their lifestyles could be to introduce a Âdangerous activity taxÊ, taxing participation in organized activities such as climbing and white water rafting to cover the cost to the NHS of injuries sustained during them. The obvious question from here is how better to run the NHS. No-one would claim that the NHS system is perfect, and it is often compared to, and seen as superior to, the American system. This is a system which is mainly based on private insurance, with government funded insurance for those on very low incomes. However the latest figures from 2010 show that 16.3% of the population remain uninsured and therefore live in fear of the financial implications of illness. This is often because they earn too much to be eligible for government funded insurance but still cannot easily afford private healthcare so take the risk of not having cover. Despite this, as a nation, America spends more than any other country in the world on healthcare, $8,608 per capita in 2011, which is more than double what was spent in the UK. Despite this, the world health organization ranked the US as having only the 37 th best healthcare system in the world, with the NHS being ranked 18 th in the year 2000. 6 This shows that the UKÊs model of having publicly funded healthcare is far more effective than the largely free market model that the USA have in place. Therefore why am I suggesting changes to the NHS, that seem to be moving towards an insurance style system, in which those who are more likely to need healthcare pay more through extra contributions such as the dangerous activity tax? Well the answer is simple, just as an economy needs to have both free market and government 6 http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care- information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the- worlds-health-systems/
A further problem of the NHSÊs current policy on this matter is that they do not currently provide weight loss surgery unless the patient had a body mass index over forty 3 . The result has been that people often intentionally put weight on, worsening their health problems in order to get over the threshold of eligibility for treatment. I therefore believe that it is immoral for those who look after their health to have to pay through taxes for others (in some cases deliberate) negligence of their health. The same principle applies to type two diabetes; a consequence of bad diet and unhealthy lifestyle. Diabetes currently costs the NHS £9.8bn per year, 90% of incidences of which are type two and cases of diabetes are expected to increase rapidly over the next twenty years. 4 Additionally, the NHS has an extensive drug addiction rehabilitation programme. This may be beneficial to society as a whole, as the NHS claims that each pound spent on treatment saves society £2.50: by reducing the number of drug takers crime rates are reduced since the annual cost of drug related crime is estimated to be £13.4 billion 5 . Nevertheless it seems unjust for the majority of hard working people to have to pay through taxes to fix the misdemeanours of a few addicts. I would therefore propose a system in which someone has to take out a compulsory loan to get treatment that would act much like a student loan so affordability is ensured by only taxing income over £21,000 once the addict is rehabilitated and working again, rather than offering treatment on a free basis. Another problem with the NHS is that it leads to a reckless society in terms of danger through leisure. People do not consider the financial cost of possible injury when deciding whether to take part in an activity as the cost is placed on society as a whole and not the individual. If people had to bear 3 http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/weight-loss- surgery/Pages/Introduction.aspx 4 http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/04april/Pages/nhs- diabetes-costs-cases-rising.aspx 5 http://www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/whyinvest2final.pdf
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