[Livia]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

At this point I'd actually lowkey advocate for only partially funded University fees (at the same level as now but allowing Universities to charge as much again covered by loan) because increased funding for Universities can only be a good thing, and I think there's a slight issue at the moment with Universities taking on more students than they can realistically teach well in order to cover costs as they can't increase fees. That said, I'd cap them at around £4k other than for intensive courses like medicine, dentistry, law, maybe heavy engineering courses etc. because the £9k fees in England for basic Arts Faculty bachelors degrees are utterly ludicrous.

I also think the situation with prescriptions is actually fine in England; free to those on low income (I'm not sure if everyone realises that this is the case in the rest of the UK. There are huge flaws with the "free for all" prescriptions model... it's a disproportionate financial burden when the money could be much better spent elsewhere in the NHS. Especially with people filling prescriptions that they don't even need, to have them sit in a medicine cupboard gathering dust. It might also make people think twice about over-using antibiotics, if they had to pay for them. I'd make an exception for people with lifelong conditions like type 1 diabetes though, with a cap on medication costs per month no matter what their income is.

Elderly care is of course a thread in itself because we (the entire western world) have an aging population and we're ALL kind of ****ed when it comes to care of the elderly and pensions .

That last para... it IS a thread in itself. And what a bloody mess it is. It's distressing to see how elderly and frail people are treated. Families used to take care of their own, but now everyone lives miles away from each other and let's face it, some families just don't want to take care of an elderly relative. It's a worry. It's off-topic... but it's still a worry.