The problem with this (and the last) right to buy scheme is that most councils with lots of social housing and all housing associations are very left leaning. This leads to them behaving in ways contrary to their own best interests and those of the people they are supposed to help as a way of opposing a Conservative government. It's probably not your cup of tea but if you read Margaret Thatcher's memoirs there's some fascinating stuff on the way local councils behave - much of it pretty much forced the creation of the Community Charge.
If I understand the message between the lines with this policy, the government will allow any housing association that doesn't reinvest into new houses to dwindle out of existence. This may mean a short term cost to the housing market but with a better long term result. I believe they will legislate that local councils have to reinvest.
A couple of examples:
One of our directors is very much the public face of our business. He's been in the industry as long as I've been alive and everyone in the industry knows (or knows of) him. He's highly respected and massively important to us - we're in a very competitive industry and he often makes the difference. A few years ago he needed a hip operation and eventually wasn't able to travel more than around 10-15 miles in a car due to the pain but we needed him to go to and from customers/suppliers as he normally does. He had a new hip fitted and was on the move within 8 weeks (the op has a 6 week recovery time). On the NHS he would have had to wait another 5-6 weeks before having the operation and was told by the specialist (who also works for the NHS) that the quality of the physio you see can easily add or remove a week or two to recovery time. We would have paid his health insurance 10 times over to get the benefit we did.
Another director has a wife with epilepsy. She went through a fairly bad phase and needed a lot of care (not constant, but he was in the office less than he'd have liked). Her specialist on the NHS was setting appointments 6 months away. By going through our private health insurance she was seen within 2 weeks and had changed medication and was nearly back to normal in two months.
All emergency treatment goes via the NHS - I don't know of any private hospitals with an A&E department. Once in an NHS hospital I would be guaranteed my own room and would be on the preference list (first seen after emergencies) for the specialist. Having your own room may not seem like much, but having spent 3 days in the same ward as an old man with no control of his bowels I can tell you it's invaluable. For anything other than an emergency I'm at the front of any waiting lists and usually would go to a private outpatients hospital.
I assume the hippy would use a bike, walk on the pavement, use a bus or a train? The reason I brought up roads. streetlighting and defence earlier is that they are very good examples of things that cannot be split down to use. Some things simply cannot be distributed on a per use basis.
