4 ms·

How does a national health care system (say such as Canada or UK) encroach on personal freedom? (Short of say the obvious...increased taxes for you.) I've foun

How does a national health care system (say such as Canada or UK) encroach on personal freedom? (Short of say the obvious...increased taxes for you.) I've found a lot of "opponents" of universal healthcare actually support a safety net for less fortunate people - they just don't want to pay for it. This is a perfectly valid reason, but I wouldn't call it encroaching on personal freedom, so I'm curious as to how else you see it affecting liberty?

stcredzero 8y ago
they just don't want to pay for it. This is a perfectly valid reason, but I wouldn't call it encroaching on personal freedom, so I'm curious as to how else you see it affecting liberty? For one thing, why are you so insistent that I'm an opponent of health care reform. (Subjectively speaking, there's this sour stickyness of you assuming things inside my head around that. If you are, please, don't. You would be wasting our time and energy with that.) I voted for Obama the 1st time in large part because of health care reform. That said, I've since changed my mind. The individual mandate in Obamacare is too big an encroachment on individual freedom. Big government agencies tend to encroach on individual freedom because they tend to accrue de facto then de jure power. Would anyone dispute that the IRS has considerable power, enough to create some potential for abuse? (Not saying we should get rid of them, however.) As far as individual freedom goes generally, watching the events of the past several years, including those around "activists," and big tech companies, has made me a lot more concerned about individual freedom. A lot of people seem to be paying lip service to concepts like Freedom of Speech and Due Process, but then putting wide ranging things into effect which interfere with or abrogate those rights, though they are not technically illegal. (yet)
- ncallaway 8y ago
  > For one thing, why are you so insistent that I'm an opponent of health care reform I think the assumptions others may have made because you've largely described what you don't want. Do you have suggestions or thoughts for what an effective system is? What is the system that you do want?
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    I'd like for people on both sides of the aisle to come together and design a system which tries to prioritize both dignified almost-total coverage and individual autonomy. Probably not the answer you were looking for, but thanks for asking the question. I think I've clarified to myself how I'm to vote.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      Obamacare was both sides of the aisle coming together. It's a repackaged version of the proposed Republican 1993 HEART Act (including the individual mandate).
      - jonfw 8y ago
        What? Obamacare didn't receive a single republican vote
        germinalphrase 8y ago
        True - but that is completely independent from the fact that the ACA was the Republican healthcare reform model (see Romneycare). The Republican Party went completely at war against President Obama regardless of whether or not he was proposing solutions they explicitly supported (in the past) or actively designed.
    - CydeWeys 8y ago
      You keep talking about personal freedom and autonomy. How exactly are you using those in a healthcare context? No one has ever proposed a system that forces adults into getting treatment against their will. Are you instead talking about being forced to pay for a healthcare system, either directly or indirectly through taxes? Because in that case, then yeah, obviously it would need to be paid for. The alternative is not having it at all. And we already don't have a system where people who can't afford healthcare are denied treatment and forced to die, and such a system is untenable according to our modern society's morals anyway. I agree with the others; you're using wishy-washy words without clarifying exactly what you're proposing, or even explaining how alternatives to the existing types of systems are possible at all.
gowld 8y ago
Taxes are quite clearly an infringement of personal freedom. Government-run healthcare removes (or greatly reduces) the choice of care from the open market and puts it in the government's control. You can't operate or patronize a medical service provider that is insolvent because the government offers a subsidized alternative service. There are tradeoffs, and well spent taxes can open up opportunities otherwise precluded, NHS might be better than a private alternative, but in the cost/benefit analysis, the costs really do exist.
- crumbshot 8y ago
  I don't see how taxes are an infringement of personal freedom, could you elaborate?
  - roenxi 8y ago
    It's a slightly roundabout set of links that tends to become very clear to people paying >40% of their income in taxes. First, some setup: The base case is I think the world needs to change, so I spend 8 hours changing it for the better. The extended case is other people notice I am making the world better, and want to pitch in. We've got this great indirection system in money to allow that to happen with a highly abstract measure of 'resources' so even if they don't know how to contribute personally they can signal how important my work is to others. Now, there are respectable schools of thought that believe something like (a) there are people who do not have the capacity to meaningfully contribute resources or (b) initial control of raw resources is more impactful than human endeavor. They employ taxes to change how resources are distributed. And now, the freedom angle: Without government tax, if I work for 8 hours I can presumably provide for myself in about 2-3 because modern production is so efficient, and then I get 5 hours to reshape the world into something I want to live in. With government tax, the split is basically 2-3 for me, 2-3 for the government, 3 for changing the world to taste. This is effectively a loss of liberty, because now I have half the control over how the world changes. That isn't particularly profound, it is just how taxes work. But one of the points of money is abstracting direct work for contributing. In a sense, this is the same as labouring directly on a government project for 2-3 hours, and that would be slavery. Obviously taxes aren't slavery because they aren't mandatory (don't want to pay taxes, don't work) but the parallel is there for reducing liberty.

stcredzero 8y ago

they just don't want to pay for it. This is a perfectly valid reason, but I wouldn't call it encroaching on personal freedom, so I'm curious as to how else you see it affecting liberty? For one thing, why are you so insistent that I'm an opponent of health care reform. (Subjectively speaking, there's this sour stickyness of you assuming things inside my head around that. If you are, please, don't. You would be wasting our time and energy with that.) I voted for Obama the 1st time in large part because of health care reform. That said, I've since changed my mind. The individual mandate in Obamacare is too big an encroachment on individual freedom. Big government agencies tend to encroach on individual freedom because they tend to accrue de facto then de jure power. Would anyone dispute that the IRS has considerable power, enough to create some potential for abuse? (Not saying we should get rid of them, however.) As far as individual freedom goes generally, watching the events of the past several years, including those around "activists," and big tech companies, has made me a lot more concerned about individual freedom. A lot of people seem to be paying lip service to concepts like Freedom of Speech and Due Process, but then putting wide ranging things into effect which interfere with or abrogate those rights, though they are not technically illegal. (yet)

ncallaway 8y ago
> For one thing, why are you so insistent that I'm an opponent of health care reform I think the assumptions others may have made because you've largely described what you don't want. Do you have suggestions or thoughts for what an effective system is? What is the system that you do want?
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I'd like for people on both sides of the aisle to come together and design a system which tries to prioritize both dignified almost-total coverage and individual autonomy. Probably not the answer you were looking for, but thanks for asking the question. I think I've clarified to myself how I'm to vote.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    Obamacare was both sides of the aisle coming together. It's a repackaged version of the proposed Republican 1993 HEART Act (including the individual mandate).
    - jonfw 8y ago
      What? Obamacare didn't receive a single republican vote
      - germinalphrase 8y ago
        True - but that is completely independent from the fact that the ACA was the Republican healthcare reform model (see Romneycare). The Republican Party went completely at war against President Obama regardless of whether or not he was proposing solutions they explicitly supported (in the past) or actively designed.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    You keep talking about personal freedom and autonomy. How exactly are you using those in a healthcare context? No one has ever proposed a system that forces adults into getting treatment against their will. Are you instead talking about being forced to pay for a healthcare system, either directly or indirectly through taxes? Because in that case, then yeah, obviously it would need to be paid for. The alternative is not having it at all. And we already don't have a system where people who can't afford healthcare are denied treatment and forced to die, and such a system is untenable according to our modern society's morals anyway. I agree with the others; you're using wishy-washy words without clarifying exactly what you're proposing, or even explaining how alternatives to the existing types of systems are possible at all.

gowld 8y ago

Taxes are quite clearly an infringement of personal freedom. Government-run healthcare removes (or greatly reduces) the choice of care from the open market and puts it in the government's control. You can't operate or patronize a medical service provider that is insolvent because the government offers a subsidized alternative service. There are tradeoffs, and well spent taxes can open up opportunities otherwise precluded, NHS might be better than a private alternative, but in the cost/benefit analysis, the costs really do exist.

crumbshot 8y ago
I don't see how taxes are an infringement of personal freedom, could you elaborate?
- roenxi 8y ago
  It's a slightly roundabout set of links that tends to become very clear to people paying >40% of their income in taxes. First, some setup: The base case is I think the world needs to change, so I spend 8 hours changing it for the better. The extended case is other people notice I am making the world better, and want to pitch in. We've got this great indirection system in money to allow that to happen with a highly abstract measure of 'resources' so even if they don't know how to contribute personally they can signal how important my work is to others. Now, there are respectable schools of thought that believe something like (a) there are people who do not have the capacity to meaningfully contribute resources or (b) initial control of raw resources is more impactful than human endeavor. They employ taxes to change how resources are distributed. And now, the freedom angle: Without government tax, if I work for 8 hours I can presumably provide for myself in about 2-3 because modern production is so efficient, and then I get 5 hours to reshape the world into something I want to live in. With government tax, the split is basically 2-3 for me, 2-3 for the government, 3 for changing the world to taste. This is effectively a loss of liberty, because now I have half the control over how the world changes. That isn't particularly profound, it is just how taxes work. But one of the points of money is abstracting direct work for contributing. In a sense, this is the same as labouring directly on a government project for 2-3 hours, and that would be slavery. Obviously taxes aren't slavery because they aren't mandatory (don't want to pay taxes, don't work) but the parallel is there for reducing liberty.