Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs writes (Letters, 15 July) that the NHS has poorer outcomes than countries with social health insurance systems, such as Germany and Belgium. Strangely, he neglects to state that Belgium spends 10.6% of its GDP on healthcare and Germany 11.3%, compared with the UK’s 9.1% (World Bank 2014 figures), surely a far more convincing reason for their outcomes being better, rather than as a magical effect of having a social insurance system? But of course that would imply that taxes should rise and the NHS be properly funded. Pretending it all happens free if you divert spending into profits for private firms and the transaction costs and bureaucracy entailed in a social insurance system would boost profits for those private firms. Just possibly, this might be the motive for the IEA.
Bob Birtwell
Chichester, West Sussex
• The NHS is an insurance scheme without the overheads. This government has deliberately starved the NHS of resources. No surprise that claims for malpractice and negligence have increased by 50% in the past two years. This is a national disgrace. It’s time for Jeremy Hunt to go.
Steve Elliot
London
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• The first letter on this page was amended on 19 July 2017 because Mark Littlewood is from the Institute of Economic Affairs, not Institute of Directors as an earlier version said.
