Seen as the UK's National Health Service is the bogey-man of choice in the US when discussing healthcare, might I recommend you do some research on how it performs for us. I find that I personally much prefer "from what I know" to "from what I hear".
Personally I've had very few days off work and most importantly very few days at work while ill (a serious cost to the economy and business), in no small part because of the access to free primary care from General Practitioners, who in turn can refer me to specialists well in advance of any complications from my ailments.
As for education, it's very much a no-brainer. I attended a very nice grammar school with a level of education that could only be beaten in my area by private education (and that was debatable), got into the 4th best university in the country for my subject (out of 100+, if you want some scale) without needing to pay any fees AND I had the option of a Government backed maintenance loan, which I took. The estimated cost of my education? £150,000. The estimated cost of my education without the support that got me to university? £50,000.
Without that financial support, I would not be a software engineer, I would not have been paying £5000 a year in tax (probably £2000 tops, about what my dad pays) on my starting salary, that will step up twice in the next financial year. It's all an initial overlay. Assuming I didn't find myself out of work at all (unlikely), I would pay back the cost of my education without university in 25 years. It's generally accepted that the kind of work I would have headed for without my degree would have been mostly inflation tracking with pay rises, as opposed to much in the way of real rises. By contrast it looks like education with university is a bad deal at first, taking me 30 years to pay it off. However, I am far less likely to find myself out of work, and my pay rises are not mostly inflation tracking, usually beating inflation by 5% - 15% a year, before bonuses.
And of course comes the masses of indirect benefits. My work without a degree would probably be admin for some big company, mostly introducing no net gain on the UK's extensive import deficit. On the other hand, the company I DO work for export services to the EU, it's their entire business. This means less Government borrwing to address the deficit, less taxes lost to interest on that borrowing, a weaker GBP against the EU (allowing more export again), and more foreign income that is consequently taxable in the UK.
The best bit is, I'm filling a skill's shortage too! And to think, I couldn't have afforded it unless it was public, banks are hardly going to loan me the money for it. If that's not public education in action, I really dunno what is.
Personally I've had very few days off work and most importantly very few days at work while ill (a serious cost to the economy and business), in no small part because of the access to free primary care from General Practitioners, who in turn can refer me to specialists well in advance of any complications from my ailments.
As for education, it's very much a no-brainer. I attended a very nice grammar school with a level of education that could only be beaten in my area by private education (and that was debatable), got into the 4th best university in the country for my subject (out of 100+, if you want some scale) without needing to pay any fees AND I had the option of a Government backed maintenance loan, which I took. The estimated cost of my education? £150,000. The estimated cost of my education without the support that got me to university? £50,000.
Without that financial support, I would not be a software engineer, I would not have been paying £5000 a year in tax (probably £2000 tops, about what my dad pays) on my starting salary, that will step up twice in the next financial year. It's all an initial overlay. Assuming I didn't find myself out of work at all (unlikely), I would pay back the cost of my education without university in 25 years. It's generally accepted that the kind of work I would have headed for without my degree would have been mostly inflation tracking with pay rises, as opposed to much in the way of real rises. By contrast it looks like education with university is a bad deal at first, taking me 30 years to pay it off. However, I am far less likely to find myself out of work, and my pay rises are not mostly inflation tracking, usually beating inflation by 5% - 15% a year, before bonuses.
And of course comes the masses of indirect benefits. My work without a degree would probably be admin for some big company, mostly introducing no net gain on the UK's extensive import deficit. On the other hand, the company I DO work for export services to the EU, it's their entire business. This means less Government borrwing to address the deficit, less taxes lost to interest on that borrowing, a weaker GBP against the EU (allowing more export again), and more foreign income that is consequently taxable in the UK.
The best bit is, I'm filling a skill's shortage too! And to think, I couldn't have afforded it unless it was public, banks are hardly going to loan me the money for it. If that's not public education in action, I really dunno what is.