3 ms·

What I really don't understand is: The UK is one of the few countries (among the countries with universal health care) that doesn't have a separate tax for hea

What I really don't understand is: The UK is one of the few countries (among the countries with universal health care) that doesn't have a separate tax for health care. That means they can handle earmarking huge amounts of money for a public service out of the general taxation. Why do they need to use this tv license thing for BBC then?

calcifer 1y ago
> Why do they need to use this tv license thing for BBC then? Even with horrendously massive cuts to public services and the Civil Service, the government has a tiny headroom in its budget, in the single-digit billions. The BBC cannot be funded from general taxation without the licence fee.
- johannes1234321 1y ago
  > The BBC cannot be funded from general taxation without the licence fee. The question also is whether Ou want to directly pay it from taxes. Taxes fully depend on the current mood of the government. The fee does a bit of indirection limiting the direct influence.
  - calcifer 1y ago
    > Taxes fully depend on the current mood of the government. The fee does a bit of indirection limiting the direct influence. Yes. In fact, that was the whole point of various "arms length" bodies - publicly owned, but largely shielded from political influence. Of course, this government took a gleeful sledgehammer to that principle by abolishing NHS England and assuming direct control via the Ministry of Health. We'll see how many institutions will be similarly butchered in the remaining 4 years.
notahacker 1y ago
The licence was introduced when television sets were an exotic luxury so adding it to the tax rises used to pay for the NHS wasn't the obvious move for a Labour government. Radio licenses existed before the NHS or most other benefits were a thing. As for why it hasn't been abolished like the radio licence... well any government that does that loses the ability to indirectly threaten it when they don't like the tone of the nation's most watched news channel by muttering darkly about how it's iniquitous funding model needs abolishing, and gets blamed for the changes people don't like.

calcifer 1y ago

> Why do they need to use this tv license thing for BBC then? Even with horrendously massive cuts to public services and the Civil Service, the government has a tiny headroom in its budget, in the single-digit billions. The BBC cannot be funded from general taxation without the licence fee.

johannes1234321 1y ago
> The BBC cannot be funded from general taxation without the licence fee. The question also is whether Ou want to directly pay it from taxes. Taxes fully depend on the current mood of the government. The fee does a bit of indirection limiting the direct influence.
- calcifer 1y ago
  > Taxes fully depend on the current mood of the government. The fee does a bit of indirection limiting the direct influence. Yes. In fact, that was the whole point of various "arms length" bodies - publicly owned, but largely shielded from political influence. Of course, this government took a gleeful sledgehammer to that principle by abolishing NHS England and assuming direct control via the Ministry of Health. We'll see how many institutions will be similarly butchered in the remaining 4 years.

notahacker 1y ago

The licence was introduced when television sets were an exotic luxury so adding it to the tax rises used to pay for the NHS wasn't the obvious move for a Labour government. Radio licenses existed before the NHS or most other benefits were a thing. As for why it hasn't been abolished like the radio licence... well any government that does that loses the ability to indirectly threaten it when they don't like the tone of the nation's most watched news channel by muttering darkly about how it's iniquitous funding model needs abolishing, and gets blamed for the changes people don't like.