Search results for ""Author Kristian Niemietz""

The British National Health Service remains the sacred cow of British politics - any criticism is considered beyond the pale, guaranteed to trigger angry responses and accusations of bad faith. This book argues that the NHS should not be insulated from reasoned debate. In terms of health outcomes, it is one of the worst systems in the developed world, well behind those of other high-income countries. The NHS does achieve universal access to healthcare, but so do the health systems in every other developed country (with the exception of the US). Britain is far from being the only country where access to healthcare does not depend on an individual's ability to pay. Author Kristian Niemietz draws on a wealth of international evidence to develop a vision for a universal healthcare system based on consumer sovereignty, freedom of choice, competition and pluralism. His roadmap for reform charts a path from the status quo to a more desirable and effective alternative.

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The political debate about poverty is entirely dominated by groups calling for more income transfers to the poor. However, now that the scope of our welfare state has reached - or even surpassed - Scandinavian levels, surely this approach has run its course. Award-winning author Kristian Niemietz lays out another approach to dealing with the problem of poverty - one that focuses on addressing the problems caused by government interventions that raise the cost of living. These interventions are enormous in their effect on the poor. As the author points out, the poverty lobbies are more or less silent on these crucial matters. This has not always been the case. In the past, free-trade movements, for example, had been seen as pro-poor movements. Alongside radical market reforms, the author proposes wide-ranging welfare reform to encourage work and remove the penalties on family formation. This would include a form of negative income tax system and the localisation of welfare decisions.

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Drawing on data from various European colonial empires, Niemietz casts doubt on the claim popular among both 19th-century imperialists and modern-day progressives that empire was a crucial factor in the West's rise to prosperity. Instead, he shows that its immorality aside Western colonialism was simply bad economics.

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