Is it time access to free NHS care was age limited?

bobbymotors

ruperts wrote: »

With the budget today we've seen what I suspect will be a theme over the coming years of working age people being hammered by tax rises to pay predominantly for the aging population to have better even standards of care.

With people living longer and longer and drawing more and more resources from the NHS as they age the only way that can be paid for is by continuing to dramatically reduce the quality of life available to the working age population through tax rises.

From a moral standpoint does there not come a point where forcing young people to work longer and longer hours for and less and less pay just to keep old people alive for a few more years becomes the wrong thing to do? I like to think if/when I am old and demanding huge amounts of money to keep me living in comfort I'd tell them to turn off the machine and use the money to help young people with their whole lives ahead of them instead. For me that would be the morally correct thing to do.

Of course we know not to expect any such displays of outside the box morality from the existing generation of pensioners who have as a collective proven time and time again that they don't care a jot for anyone but themselves, but although it would be a shock to their systems, old people don't always have to get everything they want.

So what I'd propose is age limiting the NHS to something like 75. A grand old age like 75. An age at which nobody could really complain were they not to go on any further. If they wanted expensive care after that age, they could have it only if they were willing to pay for it out of their own pockets.

This would have three substantial benefits:
1) massively reduce the costs of the NHS freeing up money to spend across all of society including giving more to those most in need
2) massively reduce the cost of the state pension freeing up money to spend across all of society including giving more to those most in need
3) massively increase the supply of available homes, bringing prices down and making them more affordable for young families, massively improving lifestyles and prospects for children

While I realise a question like this is loaded with emotion as nobody would want to effectively give up on a person's life, right now we are effectively giving up on millions of children's lives by forcing their parents to work fruitlessly in an economy in which they exist only to fund the lifestyles of the old. Surely a reasonable civilisation would seek to ensure that opportunities for the young and old were at least equal, and it would probably favour the young. But right now in our society we're disregarding the young to pay for the richest generation of pensioners the world has ever seen to have even more of everything.

:rotfl:

I think it should be specifically done as you say as follows

1. To all people in the county where you live
1a That are your specific age right now
1b That share your date of birth
1c That live at your address
1d With your exact name

It would be a very decent start