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Fascinating that he picks Blair's Fabian speech as an example of the NHS being a thorn in government's side. I didn't vote for Blair, or support many of his po

Fascinating that he picks Blair's Fabian speech as an example of the NHS being a thorn in government's side. I didn't vote for Blair, or support many of his policies, but his governance utterly transformed the NHS for the better. It was adequately funded for the first time in a couple of decades, at the time of this speech, and they were now searching for ways to measurably improve care, especially in comparatively neglected areas such as mental health. Quality goes down when governments start bringing political ideology to the fore - eg "we must bring the efficiency of the market to the NHS" neatly ignores the fact the NHS is actually pretty damn efficient, and is one of the strongest buyers on the planet getting significantly better pricing from all the drug companies. Adding managers and market aspects actually worsened this. The French example of basic income isn't. It's a means tested benefit which is utterly incomparable to UBI. I'm starting to doubt everything he's written by this point.

1024core 10y ago
> The French example of basic income isn't. It's a means tested benefit which is utterly incomparable to UBI. Read the article again. His point is that the RMI (RSA) is what they ended up with, even though they wanted (started with) something similar to UBI.
- ebalit 10y ago
  No, they did not start with a UBI. RMI was means tested from the start. The RSA was a reform intended to "smooth the edges". While you would lose you're RMI as soon as you start working, now you can keep part of the RSA during a transition period. But the problem with RSA is that it's really complex and most people still don't get it. And it's a lot of paperware for a relatively small amount of money. I think France is actually one of the best place to start a real UBI scheme. Our system is close to UBI but probably the worst implementation possible, with a lot of edge cases. This proposal details a complete reform of our tax system around a UBI: http://www.allocationuniverselle.com/doc/BIEN_Munich_2012-09-15_MdeBasquiat.pdf http://www.allocationuniverselle.com/doc/BIEN_Munich_2012-09...
Nicolas_Colin 10y ago
I agree as for what Blair did for the NHS, but it was precisely his way to deal with the NHS being a thorn in the side. What's interesting is the underlying philosophy: instead of providing citizens with money, the New Labour tried to rebuild the best system possible for rich and poor alike. A UBI is unable to achieve that goal in healthcare. As for the French example: I agree it isn't the theoretical concept of basic income (and thought I wrote so). Rather my point is that this is how basic income would end up after 1 or 2 electoral rounds.

1024core 10y ago

> The French example of basic income isn't. It's a means tested benefit which is utterly incomparable to UBI. Read the article again. His point is that the RMI (RSA) is what they ended up with, even though they wanted (started with) something similar to UBI.

ebalit 10y ago
No, they did not start with a UBI. RMI was means tested from the start. The RSA was a reform intended to "smooth the edges". While you would lose you're RMI as soon as you start working, now you can keep part of the RSA during a transition period. But the problem with RSA is that it's really complex and most people still don't get it. And it's a lot of paperware for a relatively small amount of money. I think France is actually one of the best place to start a real UBI scheme. Our system is close to UBI but probably the worst implementation possible, with a lot of edge cases. This proposal details a complete reform of our tax system around a UBI: http://www.allocationuniverselle.com/doc/BIEN_Munich_2012-09-15_MdeBasquiat.pdf http://www.allocationuniverselle.com/doc/BIEN_Munich_2012-09...

Nicolas_Colin 10y ago

I agree as for what Blair did for the NHS, but it was precisely his way to deal with the NHS being a thorn in the side. What's interesting is the underlying philosophy: instead of providing citizens with money, the New Labour tried to rebuild the best system possible for rich and poor alike. A UBI is unable to achieve that goal in healthcare. As for the French example: I agree it isn't the theoretical concept of basic income (and thought I wrote so). Rather my point is that this is how basic income would end up after 1 or 2 electoral rounds.