Why should well people subsidize unwell rich people who use the NHS ?

Thought this article in Saturdays Guardian has got all this about right http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/08/alan-johnson-cameron-chainsaw-mob

To coin a phrase “It is ideological stupid !”

I'd love to be ble to see the tone of the conversations right now if Labour had won. Recalling that Darling said he would have to cut "deeper than Thatcher", and that the difference between Labour and Coalition planned cuts are rather marginal in the wider scheme of things, this 'it's all ideological' chat seems to be head-burying to me.

I think we can meaningfully distinguish between benefit payments like child benefit and the NHS proper. 'Health is not for sale', as the the Italian Union workers once chanted. Giving a universal benefit to the middle class to spend on extra bruschetta for Tarquin does not, in my opinion, have the same importance.

@Siolae - apologies, I was replying to Ali. That said, you appeared to be agreeing with her statement where she defended universal benefits.

I thought this was quite interesting from Stephanie Flander’s blog on the BBC web site

“Labour tilted the tax and benefit system in the direction of children and families, particularly low income single parent families. For better or worse, that is what their target of eradicating child poverty encouraged them to do. It is going to be hard to raise serious money from the benefit system without tilting it back. According to the IFS, single parents are now about 13-16% better off as a result of Labour's tax and benefit changes, depending on whether they work. Non-pensioner households without children, on average, are worse off than they would have been if the 1997 system had remained unchanged. (These averages exclude people earning more than £100,000 a year who have been hit by higher tax.) Interestingly, given this week's debate, Labour's changes also turn out to have favoured families with "stay at home" mums. Other things equal, the average one earner household with children was nearly 6% better off in 2010 than they would have been under the old system, whereas, households with children where both couples work were just over 1.2% worse off. But note this last group still did a lot better than dual earner couples without any children in the house, who were about 4% worse off as a result of the changes Labour brought in. The upshot is that the coalition is not going to be able to take a lot of money out of the system they inherited without leaving a lot of families worse off. Put it another way: "family-friendly" deficit cuts on the scale that Mr Osborne believes to be necessary are almost certainly a contradiction in terms.”

Any views from single parents on this to counter views of the single non parents who are commenting on here

@siolae - Childcare costs seem like another big issue, especially in London. It just seems so expensive, even for dual earners.

[...] sucessfully targetted in the demise of GB [...]

I was sitting there wracking my brains tying to figure out just when was the 'demise of Great Britain' of which you speak, before I figured out what you meant :-)

In many ways, it's easier if you're single.

Tomorrow is my last day at work. My contract has run out, and there's no money to extend it. Obviously, I'm looking for something else, but there isn't much out there. The last job I applied for had over 200 applicants.

So, after lots of expensive education and years of working, I'm about to become unemployed. And what I can expect to get from the government? Fuck all.

Job Seeker's Allowance is £67.50 a week. And if I do any freelance work at all, that goes down to zero. I can't get housing benefit or council tax benefit because my husband is employed. He makes enough to pay the rent and utility bills. All other expenses (food, transport, etc) will go on a credit card, until I find a new job.

If I were single, I could get housing benefit to pay the rent. If we just lived together but weren't married, I could at least get my half of the rent paid for. But because we're considered a family, I get nothing.

Last time I was unemployed, I didn't even bother to sign on. It wasn't worth the hassle.

@Ali - I'm not picky. Needs must and all that. In my day job, I do research in various social science disciplines. I do theatre things the rest of the time (playwriting, dramaturgy, teaching). I can do admin, too.

@Miss Annie - I don't see why age has anything to do with it. 35 is an arbitrary cut-off. I could understand it if they limited it to a studio for a single person living on their own, though the difference in price between a studio and a one-bed is often minimal.

My friend's sister was unemployed last year. The two of them shared a two-bed flat. Housing benefit paid for half of their rent. Unaesthetic and I rent a one-bed flat. We can't get any housing benefit at all. That doesn't seem fair. The govt is assuming that because we're married, we share our finances. Plenty of couples don't.