We all pay for the NHS - its not free, 'most' pay in a hell of lot more than we ever get out. Your above statement is factually incorrect as is your point about education!!

She meant "free at the point of need" as you are fully aware.

Unfortunately contributing to the state is not some form of pick 'n' mix, where we can chose just what parts we'd like to make a contribution. I didn't agree with our invasion of Iraq but I never got a chance to withdraw my financial support in protest

Just because they don't give you bill doesn't mean its free it costs you just as much if not more over your lifetime - as you very well know. Personally I would rather pay pvt insurance and use when required.

When you say most pay in a lot more than they get out, is that right? Most NHS spend occurs in a persons last year of life. The government is running a deficit which means tax revenues are less than overall expenditure. Most tax is paid by a relatively small proportion of people and so I am not sure it is correct to say most people pay in a lot more than they get out.

Would you? The reality of that is that the older you get the more expensive it would become to the stage where it would be costing tens of thousands of pounds per annum in your retirement. Not only that, should you get a chronic condition they would not insure you.

The NHS is a great benefit to the UK economy. Without it businesses would be funding health insurance costs making our businesses less competitive. We already have higher property costs than most other places (other than Japan) so an extra burden would be very dangerous to our competitiveness,

Some people will pay in more over their lifetime than what they receive in direct care/treatment etc. but that rightly goes toward treating those who fall ill. But private insurance cover does too.

And most private insurance providers in the UK don't cover everything, they certainly don't cover existing conditions and the vast majority still require the services of the NHS or their premiums would be a lot higher.

IIRC someone on the average wage pays roughly £900 a year through their tax and NI toward the NHS.
The best BUPA cover available, for a fit, healthy, non-smoker with no pre-existing conditions of any kind costs £89 per month (£1,068 per year) and doesn't cover everything the NHS does. Most notably A&E, maternity and urgent surgical procedures.

So Employers NI is not funding some health costs? and these costs don't impact competitiveness

The tax take covers all sorts of things. Employers NI was just a convenient thing to hike up as a stealth tax to keep the headline income tax rate low. As the previous poster said, private insurance premiums would far outweigh the tax costs of the NHS if you could find comprehensive insurance cover. The only people a truly private medical insurance system would suit would be the mega-wealthy who could afford to pay for their medical care without resort to insurance. Oh, and the investors and executives in medical insurers.

The USA spends a lot more on healthcare than here despite enormous numbers of people having no decent care. A sick system.

All NI receipts('ees and 'ers) total c. £107bn pa. Pensions and NHS (the two things you may perceive them as funding?) account for over £264 bn of government spending pa. So the "some" funding you mention is, like I said, cheap for business.

The larger American companies are considered amongst the best in the world to work for - paying health premiums doesn't appear to impact their attractiveness to employees or business competitiveness.

If companies here had to pay health premiums then surely they would not have to pay as high employers NI?

I work for a large American company and when I was over there a few years back I walked into the office on my first day there to find various people being escorted out if having been made redundant that morning (no consultation period over there....).

One of them was an ex-pat friend of mine from the UK and when we met up later in the bar he told us one of the terms of his exit package was he would be allowed to keep his company health insurance for 12 months[i if he met a premium of $1000 a month[/i. So he is not earning and yet to keep the same level of cover he had through his work he'd have to find $1000 a month.

The alternative of not paying the premium is you lose the health insurance there and then and so you have to pay for literally every medical expense in full.

Kids need to see the doctor? Pay up.

Dentist? Pay up without any capped cost of treatment.

Need to go into hospital? Consider a second mortgage on the house if you can get one. Or bankruptcy.

What you don't seem to realise is once you stop paying the premiums your private health cover vanishes.

Are you so confident you won't suffer any misfortune that would deny you your private medical cover due to the inability to pay the premiums?

Even in-work you had better be very good at reading the small print to find out just how long and for how much you are covered for certain illnesses.

Whereas here, with the NHS, it doesn't matter if you are in work or are unemployed or whatever. You have no worries about medical costs at all.

And you are in favour of private health insurance?

Are you completely out of your mind?

The US no longer has that many good employers for life. That were casualisation of the work-force comes from. As I said above employers NI contributions go nowhere near the cost of the health care costs in the UK so in effect "good" employers who would otherwise provide good health insurance are getting it on the cheap.