How best to fund the NHS

With rising costs of the healthcare system in England, how should the NHS be funded? On page 488 Green and Irvine argue for a system based on social insurance, as in France and Germany. McKee and colleagues say that the current tax based system recognises that those whose needs are greatest are least able to pay for care, and the young and rich subsidise the old and poor. A shift to competing insurance funds, they say, will relieve the rich of this burden—but is this the real issue?

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