[Aerroon]

>An institution does not become beloved by the public for failing to provide a good standard of care for a long enough time that people become used to it doing so.

Here's how you do it: you pump unsustainable amounts of money into the service over time. This allows you to offer a great service until in the future you can't pump enough money into it anymore. But that's a problem for the future generations. Those future generations were funding the previous generations all the while, but won't get the same benefits themselves.

An ever increasing percentage of GDP is being poured into the UK's NHS. At some point it's going to be too costly and the young generation at that time will have to pay for it, but won't get the same level of service themselves when they're older. They will be the ones left holding the bag.

I don't think there's a politically viable solution to this though. The problem with this model is that you're effectively borrowing from future generations, but the system takes so long to reach actual unsustainability that people will grow up with the feeling that the system is great.

[ljf]

Is £2,647 per adult per year an unsustainable amount? How much is is OK to spend on the military? On roads? On tax breaks for energy companies?

Don't forget healthcare isn't about you, it is about society and if you don't care about society just think of it instead as having healthy employees and customers, who aren't ruined if they fall ill, and therefore have cash to spend...

[harvey9]

the uk spends far less per capita than the usa. can you explain what you mean by unsustainable?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h...

[aceazzameen]

What's a better system then? Because it certainly isn't privatization. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that's what you're arguing for.

>you pump unsustainable amounts of money into the service over time. This allows you to offer a great service until in the future you can't pump enough money into it anymore.

This is how every growth based juggernaut business works as well. Quality of service always goes down to continue growth of profits, especially after you've crushed the competition.

IMO, healthcare of the public should not be a profitable business. Or the business will always find ways to squeeze their customers who simply need care for the health.

[starkd]

It's not so much the profit that matters, in principle. But profitability does provide some constraint and guide to resource allocation that a public institution is still grappling with how best to do. Private institutions can go under and be replaced more easily. Again, not perfect, but you never see the same creative destruction in government institutions.