But also drum it into kids at school, from the age of about 12 upwards, that they WILL get old (believe it or not, children!) and they WILL need to sort out their pension sooner or later. I don't expect schools, even at secondary level, teach much about one's financial affairs, just as they teach so little about sex education.
I dread to think what the cost of living will be when my nieces and nephews, now in their early 20s and younger, reach pensionable age, which will probably be 69 or 70, the ways things are going.
That was the previous government, I bet Osbourne is gnashing his teeth over that. ;-) I know people who strongly resented the change, a lady friend of mine made the full contributions and is quite bitter about it.
Well, I already have seven years more than the requirement, but the amount we contribute in the UK is a pittance compared to Germany. German standard pensions are far better than in the UK. Most pensioners are quite well-off. None of this "pension credit" malarkey over there. It's largely unnecessary.
Indeed, the problem in the UK is that we don't pay enough into the National Insurance scheme. My daughter has lived in America for 13 years and she acknowledges that they get better medical and dentistry care, but they pay a great deal more for it!
The $1000 per month her husband's employer pays for their health insurance will be difficult to afford if and when he is ever able to retire.
That depends how many people that insurance covers.
Because we pay for the NHS through our taxes, very few appreciate just how much we actually pay here. In fact it works out at £2000 a year for every man, woman and child in the UK. Multiply that by 5 for a family with 3 children and that's £10,000 a year, or $15,000, as against the $12,000 apparently paid in the USA.
And, in general, we have to pay for our dentistry on top.
Large families with lots of non-earners benefit enormously in the UK, being paid for by small families where most work. In the USA, you pay for just the number in your particular family, and don't subsidise other profligate breeders.
Hold it! There are people only earning £10,000 a year or not much more, so that does not add up. Are you suggesting that a family with three young children pay that much? It's some years since I paid National Insurance, and I threw away my old pay slips some years ago, but it didn't come anywhere that figure.
But when you retire in this country, you stop paying N.I. Private Health Insurance tends to rise as you get older, just when you need it, you can't afford it, unless you are wealthy.
Yes, I pay around £16 for an inspection and clean. Inspection and a filling is around £46., and that covers the six months to the next inspection, I have had repairs free of charge in that period, and denture repairs for free.
Let's not compare our charges with America. ;-)
I don't know of any families of that description among my acquaintances or in my neighbourhood, although they are regularly featured in the Daily Mail. ;-)
That's what it costs all of us to support them if they are average consumers of NHS services, not what they necessarily pay. The expenditure on national health services in the UK amounts to about £120 billion, or £2000 per year per person, man woman or child. Someone pays it, if not the family themselves. If you're a relatively high earner living alone or just as a couple, especially if the partner works as well, then you'll be paying a lot more to compensate.
No, not necessarily. In the UK it depends on the earnings of the wage earners in the family. If we had a system like in the USA where you have to rely on private health insurance that _is_ what you'd have to pay at the very least.
That's because the NHS isn't funded out of National Insurance contributions, but out of general taxation. It takes about 20% of _all_ taxation revenue, or nearly two-thirds of all that raised through income tax alone. Work it out on how much income tax you've paid in the past, and you won't be quite as complacent.
But not tax.
Then don't pay it. You don't have to. The fact remains that, if you are an average family with 3 kids, then you'd have to pay £10000 a year to provide them with the health care they'll need. If it's covered by private insurance, you can be sure the insurance provider will charge you that plus whatever he needs to fund his yacht.
Fine, that's £124 a year you can add to the general expenditure on you as an average consumer of NHS services of £2000.
I was talking of a family with 3 kids. You really don't know any like that?
Our family was one of those. :-) I was thinking in terms of what I had to pay when I was the sole breadwinner, whereas you were talking about what we cost. Very little compared with today. Family allowance was a pittance and IIRC it didn't apply to the first child in the 60s/70s? Maternity allowance was paid for only 3 months, and when the kids arrived I had to take holidays. Now they have "paternity" leave, if the father is still around, which I think is outrageous.
My only daughter who lives in Britain has no children, and is contributing the benefit "pot", but I don't hear her whining.
Don't forget, we lived in a shoe box in the gutter, ate gravel for breakfast, and worked 25 hours a day for sixpence. ;-)
Well, what we cost is what, on average, we will pay. It can't be otherwise.
If she only realised where the money she pays is going, perhaps she would. Has she received £2000 of NHS care in the last year, and in the year before that, and in the year before that?
If not, she's been paying well over the odds.
And still paid over 40% of what you were paid in tax!
No, because she is in her mid 40s, and puts in more than she takes out, although she benefited as a child with free dental care etc.
I shouldn't need to explain this here, but it's how National Insurance works. I worked and paid it for 42 years, and made few demands on it, but have paid none for 19 years. I receive the normal health care which everyone should get in a civilised society, free at the point of delivery, except for modest contributions to dentistry, and extra options on my spectacles, like designer frames or photo-sensitive lenses.
National Insurance has nothing to do with it. The NHS is paid for out of general taxation. That aside, and assuming you didn't mean it literally but really meant 'a national health service', the blunt truth is that high users, including the feckless and reckless, smokers, drunks and lardies, as well as those who act as baby factories, are heavily subsidised by those in society who are more responsible and take greater care of themselves.
Why should I (or you) pay more because someone else wants five kids? Why should I pay more because a tombstoning grandad needs a helicopter ride to hospital? Why should I pay more for people who break their legs skiing? Why should I pay more for people who get pissed on a Friday night and clog up every A&E department in the country? Why should I pay for someone else's IVF treatment?
Why shouldn't they pay, or take out insurance where the premiums will reflect the risk they actually pose?
'Free' state provision encourages irresponsibility, and it isn't sensible.
I saw on TV the other day a guy who had 4 young children complaining he couldn't afford his first home. Doesn't he realise children cost money to bring up?
Problem is that house prices are too high due to demand exceeding supply, that's market forces innit? I won't mention reckless lending and reckless borrowing adding to the "boom". Damn! I just did. By the time young people can afford to buy a house these days they are well past the ideal age for starting a family.
We saved up a 20% deposit whilst living in a flat for 18 months, but at today's house prices and lack of job security I doubt we could do it now, and my house is only around average price.
Ok, let's just lump it with the rest of our taxes, (which I'm still paying). You pay in according to your means , and you draw according to your needs.
If you want a "survival of the fittest" society you can always go to America. Part of my family is there, and they are realistic about what happens if they can't afford their health insurance. For a family of three it costs them almost as much as my monthly pensions.
Given that most young people don't get an education sufficient to make them useful to employers and there's an ageing population then many people of ability will choose to leave the country rather than have most of their earnings taken from them to pay for young people and old people.
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