Scotland going broke from universal health care, suggest rationing it to just poorest 20%

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6/21/11, "Scotland 'is being killed' by free services," The Scotsman, David Lee

"THE rising demand for public services is "killing" Scotland, and dwindling resources should be directed at those in greatest need, according to the leader of the country's local authorities. Rory Mair, chief executive of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), raised the spectre of ending universal public services and instead concentrating on the poorest

• 20 per cent of society.

He accused the Scottish Government of making a wilful decision not to have a difficult debate about the emergence of a growing gap between public sector finances and demand for services - a gap that could be as high as £3 billion by 2016-17 from a total budget of £12bn.

"That is a 25 per cent gap between what we need to spend and the resources we have. The gap is not growing slowly or far in the future - it is there and expanding now," said Mr Mair, speaking at The Scotsman Conferences event "What Does The New Parliament Mean for Scotland?"

He added: "There is an almost wilful avoidance of discussing what we need to discuss - and if we don't discuss it, we will be letting Scotland down. If we carry on providing services the way we do now, we will need to build a new general hospital every 18 months and a new nursing home every six weeks....

He added: "The bottom 20 per cent need and deserve a specific, co-ordinated and effective response from the public sector. Even if you do not agree with this in terms of social justice, the cost of maintaining the bottom 20 per cent under the current position will overwhelm us if not addressed.

"A combination of belt-tightening, efficiencie s and symbolic reorganisation will not solve the problem. No-one should pretend that further rounds of 2 per cent per year cuts

• will solve the problem. "...

via Lucianne.com