Spoke to a former director of an international private healthcare company the other night who is 100% certain that the NHS is on it's way out within the next 5 to 10 years.
Key points of her argument were:
* Cost is rising whilst the quality of service remains well below our EU counterparts
* Former Chancellor Savid Javid became an advisor to JP Morgan and lo and behold they launched JP Morgan Healthcare in May this year before Javid returned as our Health Minister - and Morgan have a history in the privatised healthcare market.
https://www.jpmorganchase.com/news-s...-morgan-health
* Boris gave the NHS the dreaded vote of confidence - the George Cross
* Private healthcare companies are actively preparing for the split up of the NHS

Politically, the NHS is untouchable, especially for a populist Government like this lot - however Income Tax and MI are also sacrosanct to the voting public and our EU counterparts who pay for their high quality healthcare, pensions and other services out of it. In France for example they pay 30% of which 17.4% is ringfenced specifically for social measures including healthcare.

But given the rising costs, the rising national debt etc sooner or later the NHS is going to be starved out of existence - unless taxes rise AND there is a significant amount ringfenced for healthcare etc.

On balance I think we're going down the private healthcare route with health insurance for those who can afford it.
I'm sure that what's left of the NHS will still provide free healthcare for those who can't - but it will be a really pared down **** service.