I was told growing up that I won’t like socialism once I have to start paying taxes. I pay taxes, but would much rather pay way more taxes to have socialism. Including paying for social programs I wouldn’t use like welfare, free tuition etc.
Once I qualified for work pharmacare that was great! But I remember how much it sucked not having any health insurance. Yeah I bootstrapped it, but I’d hope we would grow up as a species and not have to have so much bootstrapping, since there are better ways at this point.
A loosely moderated place to ask open ended questions
If your post is
it’s welcome here!
Thanks to that significant amount, if you happen to be diabetic, you don’t have to pay hundreds for a single insulin dose. Just to talk about a single thing. But there are many others. What do you consider “emergency needs”? A car accident? Good, but what about a long term illness? Like cancer. Or what about paid sick leave?
The problem is that you are assuming that you will never need the system. And that is a very risky stance.
Besides, considering US Americans pay hundreds in insurance anyway (and then they still have all the misery of their system), are you sure you’re paying too much for your public healthcare system?
I think those things should be covered by a non-mandatory supplementary insurance.
Yes it is a certain risk, but I would still prefer if people had a choice. Not having any financial resources for other things is also a big risk and might even cause health issues that you would not have if you could afford a more healthy lifestyle instead of being forced to pay into a mandatory insurance scheme.
US Americans pay hundreds per month on their health insurance. And it doesn’t mean they have “free” healthcare after they pay those hundreds. In fact, they usually have to pay thousands in case of need (the difference is that with insurance they pay few thousands instead of hundreds of thousands). The reason our system is cheaper is because it doesn’t operate for profit.
If we had a system in which people doesn’t have a mandatory, they would need to pick too: between health insurance (that would be more expensive than the mandatory) or healthier lifestyle. And many would still pick the insurance because the alternative is what we see in the US. People would simply end up paying more than they pay now for the mandatory plan.
The US system is uniquely bad, not sure why you keep going back to that as the supposed alternative.
There are many countries that have basic government run insurance (Canada for example) that don’t cost an arm and a leg in monthly payments and still cover the most important stuff.
But we’re at the same point then. They cover the basic stuff and the rest is on you. So people with less resources will have to pick between get the other things covered (out of their pocket) or spend that money in healthier lifestyle (and hope to not need the additional insurance).
Your problem is that you want to have less coverage and pay less taxes? Fine, but what would happen if you need healthcare that is not covered by your basic insurance then?
That’s a bit like asking what would happen if you get hit by a lightning. Bad things happen sometimes and that’s life. Can’t have (afford) insurance for everything and neither should you be forced to pay for advanced insurance you don’t want.