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quote="Alan"]Your personal national insurance contributions are not applied to you personally. But if they were, they would have to cover all of the NHS care you received during your life, your state pension and any care. A person earning £30,000 a year pays £2,600 a year in NI. If they were in work for 45 years they would pay £117,000.
If they drew a state pension of £140 per week for 18 years, they would receive £131,040.
If they had a hip replacement, the cost is approx £12,000 for the first operation and similar for the revision 10-15 years later.
If they require residential care, the cost is, typically, £40,000 per year. Let's say, 3 years at that? That's £120,000.
So I've totted up £270,000 plus without a single visit to the gp, prescription or trip to the hospital other than a hip replacement and revision. I've not added in the cost of a chronic condition such as diabetes, which is a bloody pandemic, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Against contributions of £117,000. A deficit of £153,000.
The NI contributions you pay today pay for the NHS and pensions being paid today; they aren't squirrelled away for you. What today's pensioners paid in went to pay for their parents and grandparents. We have an ageing population because of advances in medicine, nutrition and so on. If we want a system where we pay in for care that we might need, the costs are likely to be much higher than the current ni rates.[/quote]