Morning:
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As I consider this week's Budget I'm struck by a profound sense of depression. Not about the contents of the offering - although they will be bad enough - but by the blinkered, frozen nature of politics in this country.
If Gordon Brown and David Cameron want to be seen to be caring, what do they do? They're either photographed in a primary school classroom or they're talking to patients and nurses on a hospital ward. It's cynical and frankly, sick-making.
They both say how much they love the National Health Service when it suits them, yet they're also the first to bemoan its problems. But they do absolutely sod all to solve them.
Alistair Darling will doubtless say to Labour backbench cheers that around £90 billion a year is going into the NHS, putting the UK on a par with other European nations in terms of healthcare provision.
He will also say, and his minions will stress, just how committed the Government remains to exacting value for the taxpayer.
Yet for all this spending, there is little commensurate gain. Waiting lists are down but the NHS suffers from chronic exhaustion - for all the Government bluster, there is never a marked improvement in its condition.
The solution is that we should pay a lot more. But for political parties that have staked their reputations on not being seen to raise taxes, that is just too awful to contemplate.
So we stagger on, from one year to the next, stumbling from one crisis in the health service to another.
I found myself thinking on this last week with Val Gooding, chief executive of Bupa. Val is retiring in May after 10 years running the UK's largest private healthcare provider.
Its results are due to be published tomorrow and, judging by her mood, they should be excellent.
When she arrived, Bupa had a turnover-of £1.2 billion and employed 10,000 people. Today, it's up to around £4.5 billion with 45,000 staff (and businessmodel students please note, it's a mutual). While that's a shadow of what the NHS consumes, it would nevertheless suggest that something dramatic has occurred.
But closer examination of the figures shows that approximately half the sales are coming from overseas. Bupa has operations in Australia, Spain and the United States.
That's not to say business here isn't growing. As Gooding says wryly: "We've not had one customer cancel because the NHS is so good." Private health policies are now taken out by 12% of the population, with another 4% prepared to pay for treatment when they need it.
But surveys show that from 30% of people being in favour of private health when Gooding started, the proportion is now well over half. In other words, most people regard private health as a good thing, yet only a fraction use it.
In Australia - which Gooding knows plenty about, having just completed a £1 billion acquisition to become the market leader there - 50% of people have private health cover.
There, the government has taken a firm stance: an ageing population will put too much of a burden on the public purse; individuals are therefore to be encouraged as much as possible to take out private medical insurance. To that end, people can take advantage of a tax rebate and lifetime cover at a flat rate. But if they earn more than A$50,000 (£23,000) a year and don't go private, they're hit with a tax penalty.
Here, in 1997, the Labour Government went down the opposite route. In his first Budget as Chancellor, Gordon Brown removed tax relief on private health insurance for the over-60s to pay for the cut in VAT on fuel. It was the right hand giving and the left taking, and, as we found out, all too typical.
That's where we find ourselves. Not making progress but stuck with spineless politicians too afraid to tackle the elephant in our midst.
