Are there actually useful cuts to be made, or are they just paving the way for a private option?
There really aren't. The NHS is a fucking mess, cuts won't fix a thing, they'd just make it worse.
Ironically, british people think it's like the best system ever, but it just isn't.
Changes need to be made, and part of that means increasing funding, even if it's via new taxes, even small ones. That's what France did 20 years ago, and the public health debt has been slashed in half and keeps going down. And we're still talking €100bln+, so the NHS deficit isn't all that terrible.