Britain, Riven by Dubious Claims of Disability, Is Emerging as the New ‘Sick Man of Europe’

That Britain has a leading claim to the title of “sick man of Europe” is little disputed. The energy grid seems to be perpetually on the verge of collapse. The tax burden is heading rapidly towards its highest level since 1945, when the nation was at the end of a titanic struggle for survival. Even the national soccer team seems unable to take the final steps necessary to overcome genuine top-level opposition.Where Britain has succeeded in distinguishing itself from its competitors, however, is by seizing the literal as well as metaphorical title. Check the latest government figures, and roughly 23 percent of working-age adults are listed as disabled. In Ukraine, an active warzone, my best estimate of the figure is around 12 percent. In the United States, despite a much maligned healthcare system, it’s about 8 percent.Britain’s children are sick, too. The number with “education, health and care plans” is rising by 11 percent each year. More than one in five pupils are now classified as having some degree of Special Educational Needs, qualifying them for additional government support. Whichever way you cut it, Britain is an outlier. The economic consequences are breathtaking. One in every seven new vehicles sold in the U.K. is bought by Motability, a charity which leases them to people in exchange for part of their government disability payments. In total, these payments are expected to cross £50 billion this year: almost three-quarters of total defense spending.The curious thing is that Britain wasn’t always sick. Today, 3.4 million working-age people are on welfare for disability, with 27,000 new claims approved each month. In 2019, the number of claimants was 2 million. Whatever’s causing the increase isn’t visible in the healthcare system: The Institute for Fiscal Studies has found essentially no relationship between hospital waiting lists and disability claims in either direction. When confronted with a mysterious set of symptoms, doctors are reminded that if they hear hoofbeats, they should think “horse” rather than “zebra.” In line with this maxim, the mystery of the British disease is easily resolved when we look at it as the outcome of several overlapping familiar pathologies. The first thing to remember is that the Personal Independence Payment — the main disability benefit for working age Brits, which qualifies you for a state-funded new car through Motability — is paid as cash. Unconditional cash. No means-testing, no work requirements, no restrictions on its use.The second is that Special Educational Needs status qualifies pupils for a range of benefits which can include up to 25 percent additional time on the exams which determine which school and university you go to, and state-funded door-to-door transport for getting to and from school (frequently in the form of private taxis). The total cost of these transport arrangements is now more than about $2 billion a year. And the third is that Britain, as demonstrated by its asylum crisis, is a compassionate country that fears saying “no” to those genuinely in need. Nobody, at any stage, set out to create a system which incentivised people into identifying as sick. Yet a naiveté about the lengths people would go to to take advantage, coupled with consistent lawfare over definitions, has created an economic monster.Taking back control will involve hard choices. Everyone can see that the rise is particularly sharp in conditions without hard physical signs — psychological illness, back pain, ill defined joint issues. Everyone can say that the government should not pay for cars for people who are simply obese (total: 800) or have mild anxiety (32,160) or suffer from constipation (20). They have been less willing to put these statements into action. Until this changes, Britain will remain the sick man of Europe, with the official sickness count merely a symptom of the underlying malaise.

Britain, Riven by Dubious Claims of Disability, Is Emerging as the New ‘Sick Man of Europe’

Britain, Riven by Dubious Claims of Disability, Is Emerging as the New ‘Sick Man of Europe’

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