[onetimemanytime]

In theory if you saved the difference in taxes...but then we don't generally save, but consume.

max 2500 pounds. Say for 6 months? A Year? That's 15k to 30k. This is not enough to justify "45%" taxes for life...

[advisedwang]

It's not about breaking even financially. It's about knowing you're never going to end up homeless or starving when your luck turns bad.

[deepbreath]

There are plenty of homeless people in London.

[globular-toast]

Being homeless in Britain is essentially a choice. It might be surprising to you but people do actually make that choice.

[mattkrause]

It's not just consumption.

You (or I) would need to save for worst-case scenarios and get very few economies of scale: you can't have 0.001 of an epidemiologist on retainer.

The government can at least pool risk (and everything) over the entire country.