Readers of this blog have often heard me say that a bipartisan agreement on a health care bill was possible in 2009--driven from the Senate Finance Committee. I have continually made the point that the two sides were much closer than is commonly believed--or partisans are willing to concede.Every time I post this, the overwhelming reaction is that I am wrong--with one side inevitably blaming the
Figures just released by the Office of National Statistics claim that the number of households living in fuel poverty has declined by 0.7million ( see data here ). The government say that less than 5 million households live in fuel poverty, while Uswitch claim that 6.3 million households live in fuel poverty. Uswitch's figure is much more reliable as their's summer 2011 price hikes. We say a family is in fuel poverty when it spends 10% of household income on its dual energy costs of heating the home and operating cooking and electrical appliances. However, as USwitch explain the governments figures are appallingly out of state ( here ). The publication today by the government only examines fuel costs up to the end of 2010. The Office of National Statistics does admit that if it factored in housing costs then 3 million more households could be described as living in fuel poverty, it also admits that 72% of English households faced a high risk of fuel poverty at year end (2010)....
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