How Barnier’s fall shows Farage is wrong about the NHS

If only the French had a word for déjà vu. It might help Michael Barnier understand the feeling he is experiencing right now.

An ill-advised national vote, called by a leader desperately trying to shut up the right, that plunges one country into chaos and leaves the whole of Europe feeling the shockwaves? Populists pushing simplistic, nostalgia-based messages to a public scared of austerity? A charismatic blonde leader on the right, who will shortly turn out to have no workable plan of their own? All a bit 2016, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, there’s a deep irony that former Brexit negotiator Barnier’s final proposed concession to Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon involved going back on a proposed 5% cut to the reimbursements French people get from government after paying for prescription medication. One UK politician has been banging the drum for a French-style health system of late, none other than the Brexiteer who once labelled Barnier an “EU fanatic”, Reform’s leader Nigel Farage.

Cynics may suggest that what Farage really fancies is an American-style system that pushes up the cost of drugs for the benefit of rich investors like his chums, but he knows that solution is toxic to the British public. Hence his strange enthusiasm for ideas that come from our European neighbours for a change.

“There are countries right next door to us, there’s one country, France, it’s a very different way to funding the NHS,” he said during the general election campaign. “Those who can afford it through their taxes pay into an insurance scheme; those that can’t afford it, don’t pay in, so it’s for the mutual benefit of everybody.”

As ever with Farage, this is a distorted simplification, but there’s no time here for a deep-dive into how the French system works. There are, however, three simple facts to consider.

First, the French invest around 20% more per capita in healthcare than us through higher taxes. Yet “I promise to put your taxes up” has yet to appear on any of Farage’s posters.

Second, despite that spending imbalance, there is dispute over whether the French system produces substantially better results than the underfunded NHS. In three separate recent rankings of healthcare systems, France sits marginally ahead of the UK according to CEOWORLD, marginally behind on the Legatum Prosperity Index and substantially behind when measured by Numbeo. France performs better than the UK on key indicators like life expectancy and rates of death from avoidable causes, but then so do other countries which spend more per head on tax-based healthcare systems, like the Scandinavians.

And third, French politicians outside the Le Pen/Mélenchon camps are beginning to realise that without cuts or even higher taxes, their health system is becoming unaffordable as the population ages. That was one reason why Barnier was predicting that, without action, France’s budget deficit could reach almost 7% of GDP next year, more than double the EU’s guidelines.

Of course, well-targeted spending on health is to be encouraged. And of course, France’s economic crisis did not begin and will not end with its healthcare system.

But isn’t there an air of Brexit déjà vu about a populist like Le Pen winning by telling the French that they can have their cake and eat it, promising better services and more disposable income for less money? And isn’t there an air of Brexit déjà vu about a populist like Farage telling the British that a massive leap into the unknown will produce a better NHS, when all the evidence suggests that it won’t?

All a bit 2016, isn’t it? I bet M. Barnier is relieved to be out of it this time.