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> How do you justify the healthy paying for the unhealthy? Over the course of time, everyone falls into both categories; this idea that there are healthy peopl

> How do you justify the healthy paying for the unhealthy? Over the course of time, everyone falls into both categories; this idea that there are healthy people is silly, everyone's health fails eventually and often randomly. Healthy is a temporary state. Everyone should contribute so everyone is covered when they become the unhealthy, as they all will. Better to pay a little bit all of the time than to pay nothing and be unable to afford a giant medical bill that hits you all at once. This is why everyone should pay all of the time, then there's enough money to cover the every changing subset of people, which will eventually include you, who are sick.

subverter 9y ago
But not everyone is (or becomes) healthy or unhealthy to the same degree. If I have no family history of health issues, or I simply want to take a chance that I'll remain healthy, why should anyone else tell me how much I should value my health?
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  It's really about double jeopardy. For a second put yourself behind the veil of ignorance. You are prebirth, you have no control over any factor of your birth other than one. That factor is that you get to pick whether you are born into a country with universal healthcare or one with non-mandated insurance where companies are able to discriminate on pre-existing conditions. Anyone who is risk averse is going to pick the universal healthcare one, otherwise you are risking a life where you are both sick but also bankrupted by medical costs. That some people in society look at the circumstances of their birth and post-hoc reason that they don't want universal healthcare because it wouldn't have benefitted them is not the point really.
- gnaritas 9y ago
  > But not everyone is (or becomes) healthy or unhealthy to the same degree. Incorrect, everyone gets sick to the same eventual degree: death. You will require medical care. > or I simply want to take a chance that I'll remain healthy No one remains healthy, period, everyone gets sick, everyone.
  - subverter 9y ago
    Even if you consider death a state of health – which is odd, who says "yeah, they're really unhealthy: they're dead" – the path to that state differs. Some people get sick very quickly right before death, while others are sick their whole life before death. Their required medical care vastly differs.
    - gnaritas 9y ago
      This is true, but it's not predictable which one you'll be. This line of reasoning is akin to claiming your car insurance should be cheaper because you'll never get into an accident. It's simply not logical. You cannot know if you're going to be someone who doesn't put a drain on the medical system or not, the future is not knowable. You could be the healthiest person in the world and get punched by someone who gives you an expensive disease through blood contact; you could randomly get cancer at any age no matter how healthy you think you are. So this notion that you think you should pay less is based on a naive understanding of how health actually works; you cannot predict the future. You could be disabled tomorrow through no fault of your own. As such, the system must be designed to consider that everyone will be sick at some point and most people will be healthy most of the time, everyone pays and the sick are covered, problem solved for everyone. Social medicine works better than any other approach, this is a fact proven around the world. Those objecting to it are doing so on ideological grounds, not on rational ones.

subverter 9y ago

But not everyone is (or becomes) healthy or unhealthy to the same degree. If I have no family history of health issues, or I simply want to take a chance that I'll remain healthy, why should anyone else tell me how much I should value my health?

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
It's really about double jeopardy. For a second put yourself behind the veil of ignorance. You are prebirth, you have no control over any factor of your birth other than one. That factor is that you get to pick whether you are born into a country with universal healthcare or one with non-mandated insurance where companies are able to discriminate on pre-existing conditions. Anyone who is risk averse is going to pick the universal healthcare one, otherwise you are risking a life where you are both sick but also bankrupted by medical costs. That some people in society look at the circumstances of their birth and post-hoc reason that they don't want universal healthcare because it wouldn't have benefitted them is not the point really.
gnaritas 9y ago
> But not everyone is (or becomes) healthy or unhealthy to the same degree. Incorrect, everyone gets sick to the same eventual degree: death. You will require medical care. > or I simply want to take a chance that I'll remain healthy No one remains healthy, period, everyone gets sick, everyone.
- subverter 9y ago
  Even if you consider death a state of health – which is odd, who says "yeah, they're really unhealthy: they're dead" – the path to that state differs. Some people get sick very quickly right before death, while others are sick their whole life before death. Their required medical care vastly differs.
  - gnaritas 9y ago
    This is true, but it's not predictable which one you'll be. This line of reasoning is akin to claiming your car insurance should be cheaper because you'll never get into an accident. It's simply not logical. You cannot know if you're going to be someone who doesn't put a drain on the medical system or not, the future is not knowable. You could be the healthiest person in the world and get punched by someone who gives you an expensive disease through blood contact; you could randomly get cancer at any age no matter how healthy you think you are. So this notion that you think you should pay less is based on a naive understanding of how health actually works; you cannot predict the future. You could be disabled tomorrow through no fault of your own. As such, the system must be designed to consider that everyone will be sick at some point and most people will be healthy most of the time, everyone pays and the sick are covered, problem solved for everyone. Social medicine works better than any other approach, this is a fact proven around the world. Those objecting to it are doing so on ideological grounds, not on rational ones.