>So who should pay for it? All taxpayers instead? Let's compare/contrast your own countrymen. The Department of Veterans Affairs (colloquially known as "the VA

>So who should pay for it? All taxpayers instead? Let's compare/contrast your own countrymen. The Department of Veterans Affairs (colloquially known as "the VA") is entirely funded by the US budget[0]. Guess where the US budget comes from. The VA, among many other services, provides "free" healthcare to veterans who are 50% or more disabled[1]. Sure, it's not entirely universal healtcare but... Then we look at the Children's Health Insurance Program (colloquially known as "CHIP"). Again, not entirely universal healthcare. However, the federal government matches states governments fundings[2] and the program is designed to reach the poorest (children) in the nation. Then, of course, you have Medicaid[3]. Essentially, for the disadvantaged, there is some level of concern and you have an approximation (if not out-right full) universal healthcare for some of them; otherwise, enter the "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" mentality comes into play. Apologies for the seemingly long diatribe of a soapbox but it seems hypocritical to say that taxpayers paying for healthcare is a bad thing when you - quite literally - do it for a sub-group of your populace. >The only good solution, I think, is to work to make healthcare a lot cheaper in the long run. As a comparator, surgery to remove a lipoma in the Emerald Isle costs about 800 quid[4] but this cost is about 1,725 quid[5] in the states. So, there's an argument to made that Universal Healthcare can make the overall costs of healthcare far cheaper. ...and this is not to mention the gratuitous amount of money you'd be saving on the budget by condensing all of those government departments down into a much smaller government, yeah? [0] - https://www.va.gov/budget/products.asp https://www.va.gov/budget/products.asp [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Veterans_Affairs#Costs_for_care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ve... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Health_Insurance_Program#State_administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Health_Insurance_Pr... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid [4] - https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health_services/gp_and_hospital_services/hospital_charges.html https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health_services... [5] - https://www.realself.com/lipoma-removal/cost https://www.realself.com/lipoma-removal/cost