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I think viewing healthcare in terms of choice is the wrong angle to approach it from. You can choose not to have a car, you can choose not to have life insuranc
by Joeri 10y ago
I think viewing healthcare in terms of choice is the wrong angle to approach it from. You can choose not to have a car, you can choose not to have life insurance. You cannot choose not to get sick. Healthcare is not a market but a basic right that almost everyone needs at some point in their life. Everyone can get the same illnesses and then need the same treatments, therefore aside from a few perks like single vs double hospital rooms there really isn't such a thing as different levels of healthcare. Given that everyone needs healthcare and how much care you need has nothing to do with your income level the fairest way to fund it is progressive taxation, from each according to ability and to each according to need in traditional socialist fashion. Any other system creates perverse outcomes, like forcing people to die sooner because their parents couldn't afford a better school for them which limited employment options.
Of course, the trick with healthcare funded through taxation is to avoid having it cut down until everyone is worse off, not just low income earners.
- paulddraper 10y ago> you can choose not to have life insurance. You cannot choose not to get sick. I can't choose not to die. I can't choose not to get sick. I can choose not to continue my family's income. I can choose not to receive medical treatment. There is nothing uniquely special about health insurance.
- thatcat 10y agoAre you really choosing not to receive treatment if you can't afford it?
- paulddraper 10y agoAbsolutely. For example I tore my right ACL last summer. I chose to wait 6 months to have an MRI and surgery (in fact, I had no idea what the injury was for that entire time), because we have a high deductable and my wife will give birth this year. You might say that's just an artifact of a broken system, and you might be right. But say, if I was 50+, I'd likely choose to avoid the surgery and expense altogether. People forgo medical treatment all the time.
- thatcat 10y agoSeems like in that case you could have afforded it, but chose not to due to high cost and non critical nature of your injury.
- XorNot 10y agoActually you can't choose not to receive medical treatment, generally. In emergency situations you are distinctly unable to choose not to have medical treatment, because you're essentially incapable of informed consent. Since EMTALA means the hospital has to treat you, and as a society people will ensure you get taken there, you are in fact incapable of doing the opting out at the times it's likely most expensive. And frankly, as a society, we shouldn't trust you: because the outcomes speak for themselves - people don't voluntarily choose not to get medical care. They lie about it when they don't need it, to suit their politics and greed.
- paulddraper 10y ago> people don't voluntarily choose not to get medical care My sarcasm detector is weak today, but I'm assuming that's what that is.
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