9 ms·

>>“free healthcare for all” There never has been and will never be 'free healthcare for all' - its not free, it's only free for some people if some other peopl

by ejb999 6y ago

>>“free healthcare for all” There never has been and will never be 'free healthcare for all' - its not free, it's only free for some people if some other people pay for it.

FireBeyond 6y ago
I'm curious who you think is actually out there laboring under the assumption that healthcare becomes absolutely, and literally, free?
- fakedang 6y ago
  A lot of Europeans in the lower taxpaying tiers who love to shit on Americans (especially when the American healthcare system has been getting so much coverage the past decade).
  - haerra 6y ago
    Uhm, I guess that you have some inner frustrations, as I have yet to meet someone who thinks that healtcare is literally free.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      If you're talking about people who for some reason don't understand European tax laws (which is a lot of people in the mainland and in the US), yeah I'm quite frustrated. My issue is with people who pay nil significant taxes in Europe gloating ignorantly about how European Healthcare is free, and won't stop shitting on American Healthcare. Yeah, your healthcare is cheaper than the US but it isn't free. There is a whole bunch of middle class folks and upper class folks paying for it. And I'm not even supporting the American model.
  - xwolfi 6y ago
    Yeah well I'm a European who was in the middle tax bracket before fleeing communism to move to China and I can tell you: the situation in Europe is unsustainable with all the youth and elders voting for "free healthcare" (it's so hard to make them understand it's free for them but oh so expensive for many others) while the people who actually find ways to produce a bit of value foreigners might be interested in, work for free to pay for it... The American healthcare system is not an healthcare system, it's a disgrace. The European ones are vast communist machines that can't pay for themselves. The best is the one I see here in Hong Kong: you pay small taxes for it, you pay for anything non critical, you get a socialized base service of average quality with very very good private healthcare that you pay for. And a network of banks providing health insurance for an okay price. For instance, you can use taxpayers money to give birth if you want, but you don't choose the date, you don't get a room for long and no way you get a C-Section unless you risk dying. In the private hospital you pay a lot, get all those things, but it's not at all necessary. I really like this compromise, which in hindsight just is obvious and shows you the shark Americans and the hippies Europeans just can't make compromises. You shouldn't have to die because you can't afford a surgery, and you shouldn't have to work 4 months a year for the State because it can't afford to give surgery for every wart on every butthole.
    - oblio 6y ago
      > The European ones are vast communist machines that can't pay for themselves. Do you have any proof of that?
      - AdrianB1 6y ago
        A family member is an expert in this area working for the government in a high position for a long time and they update quarterly the estimations on when the system will fall, not if. The current calculation is less than 15 years and it is fairly constant for the past 10-15 years. In the discussions they have between countries the situation varies a lot, from countries that are going from default to default like Greece) or close (PIGS) to countries that are almost stable (Germany), but on average the situation is bad. For example I was told 10 years ago never to expect to retire because there will be no money for the public pension system when I will have the age. It is on an accelerating fall and the politicians are messing it up even further, pensions were increased by law by 40% about a year ago: if there is no future, you can start ruining the present.
        ptsneves 6y ago
        This is a bit of a misterpretation. Yes they make that calculation but to know how to adjust the age of retirement and because there are shunt laws that limit the expenditure to a given percentage of gdp. Portugal(p in pigs) is such a country and this shunt law is a 2/3 law meaning if debt ceilings are overridden by government or parliament it will be struck down by the constitutional court. just recently there was such a law and it was promptly sent there. E
    - FireBeyond 6y ago
      When I left Australia, which is now 14 years ago, so grain of salt: you paid 1% income tax for Medicare, unless you were above a certain income level, in which it became 1.5%. If you opted out of the system, you could purchase private insurance, and would not be subject to this tax. There was a floor, where below or near "minimum income" levels, you were also not required to pay this tax. > For instance, you can use taxpayers money to give birth if you want, but you don't choose the date, you don't get a room for long and no way you get a C-Section unless you risk dying. This makes absolutely no sense. Short of induction agents, which have varying degrees of efficacy, if you're not getting a C-section, the healthcare industry, hospital, don't decide when you give birth, you/your baby do.
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    As someone who was born under the NHS in Scotland, grew up in Australia under its Medicare system (and the introduction of partial privatiz(s)ation), and has lived in the US since 2006, no-one is laboring under that misapprehension. Medicare tax is indeed a line item on Australian taxation paperwork.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      I don't know where you get the impression that I'm criticizing the NHS or a nationalized Healthcare service. I'm all for a nationalized healthcare service. My issue is with people who pay nil significant taxes in Europe gloating ignorantly about how European Healthcare is free, and won't stop shitting on American Healthcare. Yeah, your healthcare is cheaper than the US but it isn't free. There is a whole bunch of middle class folks and upper class folks paying for it.
      - ratsforhorses 6y ago
        Just a thought, "paying nil significant taxes" would mean lower or nil income...? we could also include refugees, prisoners in that group I guess.... these people, may also be providing a huge extra to society in the form of being low paid, having future potential or not adding to externalisation costs such as increased infrastructure needs higher income earners do... also I think the main criticisms of the US health system is that insurance is in most cases part of the job contract and that there are huge (cost) inefficiencies due to insurers battling over coverage costs with health providers... as an aside I live in Romania and as a low income earner I forgoe insurance because it's a lot cheaper to get care when I need it
        jschwartzi 6y ago
        > insurance is in most cases part of the job contract and that there are huge (cost) inefficiencies due to insurers battling over coverage costs with health providers. To say nothing of how maddening it is to have to change doctors every time we change jobs, or to lose coverage for certain conditions when we change jobs, or to have to perfectly time certain life events such as childbirth or pregnancy to either before or after we change jobs, or to make sure we don't get sick during the probationary period while we're changing jobs, and so on.
  - FourthProtocol 6y ago
    Some examples would be useful. Yes, many that don't pay tax benefit from the government, and yes, you can view that as a working class paying for the unemployed. Imagine, if you will, a 50-year-old woman on the dole (she's paid a monthly sum by the government). In Germany, for instance, this is only paid if she can prove that she applied, and continues to apply for work/seek employment. It's a bit of a mad circle - she doesn't want work, because she has a comfortable, if meagre life. Of course she dutifully applies for employment every month, and occasionally lands an interview. She's been out of work for so long though, that's she's no longer employable. She's too old for manual labour, cannot type, doesn't do Internet. And so no one will have her. It's not ideal for someone expecting to get out what they put into the system, but it's a social safety net that's better than forcing people out onto the street. Will all the problems that brings. And yes, the 50-year-old gets "free" healthcare. Which I contribute to, from my hard work. And I think this system among the best on the planet.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      > And yes, the 50-year-old gets "free" healthcare. Which I contribute to, from my hard work. And I think this system among the best on the planet. I wish more people had that attitude. Instead, in the US, we have people actively making their own lives worse because they don't want to give others things they don't believe they "deserve". If taking more out of my paycheck would get all the homeless people off the streets, I would happily do that. I personally believe that everyone has a right to housing, but even if I didn't care about people, I'd be ok with it because getting homeless people off the streets makes my life better too. Ensuring that people aren't insecure about housing and food translates to lower crime rates and safer neighborhoods. It makes me genuinely angry that anti-welfare people don't get this, and actively lobby against their own interest. I'm sure there are some people who just believe that welfare programs don't work, and are against them on those grounds, but most of the rhetoric I hear seems to be around not giving people things they haven't worked for and don't deserve.
      - _carbyau_ 6y ago
        Your last paragraph is the bit that resonates with me. Paying taxes to treat people humanely and with dignity is a good option because when people are desperate, riots and violence are not far away. And if your thoughts are to push people to that extreme so you can be violent against them, then it is you who are the lesser person.
  - ZuLuuuuuu 6y ago
    That is not reality, that is what American right thinks about European people. We of course know that we are paying for healthcare with our taxes, but we also know that in the end what we pay is lower than what we would pay without a government healthcare system. So we chose this healthcare system consciously.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
      Do we though? What % of the general population do you think can actually come close to estimate the real cost of their complete annual health care premium cost (let alone actual procedures or services like emergencies)? And what subset of that do you think would be incredibly shocked at the actual price ?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- inopinatus 6y ago
  Given the venue of these remarks, and the otherwise reductio ad absurdum of the alternatives, we can surmise this is referring to free as in speech, not free as in beer, and they mean santé libre, to distinguish it from proprietary licensed healthcare.
seanmcdirmid 6y ago
The more correct term for universal healthcare rather than free should be cheaper as everyone with such systems wind up spending much less on healthcare than the USA. We basically spend as much per capita on our public system than other countries do on healthcare overall, and then we also have a private system that is even more costly.
rand49an 6y ago
America spends the highest amount per capita & the most in total terms by a large margin and they aren't able to cover 100% of their citizens. Nobody thinks that healthcare is magically free in the rest of the world, but at least in countries with socialised medicine people pay into a system that covers everyone in society.
thebruce87m 6y ago
I’ve never seen anyone argue that. Well, until now anyway.
dopidopHN 6y ago
You pay with your taxes. Is that this hard to understand? In France when my boss give me 1 euros, he has to give 0.33 cents to a found that goes toward my healthcare. Then most things are « free ». From regular doc appointments to oncologists. Here I pay 500$/month, and then some co-pay and then some more. It’s not that different.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  France doesn't have $20 aspirin pills.
ladyanita22 6y ago
Agreed

by ejb999 6y ago

>>“free healthcare for all” There never has been and will never be 'free healthcare for all' - its not free, it's only free for some people if some other people pay for it.

FireBeyond 6y ago

I'm curious who you think is actually out there laboring under the assumption that healthcare becomes absolutely, and literally, free?

fakedang 6y ago
A lot of Europeans in the lower taxpaying tiers who love to shit on Americans (especially when the American healthcare system has been getting so much coverage the past decade).
- haerra 6y ago
  Uhm, I guess that you have some inner frustrations, as I have yet to meet someone who thinks that healtcare is literally free.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    If you're talking about people who for some reason don't understand European tax laws (which is a lot of people in the mainland and in the US), yeah I'm quite frustrated. My issue is with people who pay nil significant taxes in Europe gloating ignorantly about how European Healthcare is free, and won't stop shitting on American Healthcare. Yeah, your healthcare is cheaper than the US but it isn't free. There is a whole bunch of middle class folks and upper class folks paying for it. And I'm not even supporting the American model.
- xwolfi 6y ago
  Yeah well I'm a European who was in the middle tax bracket before fleeing communism to move to China and I can tell you: the situation in Europe is unsustainable with all the youth and elders voting for "free healthcare" (it's so hard to make them understand it's free for them but oh so expensive for many others) while the people who actually find ways to produce a bit of value foreigners might be interested in, work for free to pay for it... The American healthcare system is not an healthcare system, it's a disgrace. The European ones are vast communist machines that can't pay for themselves. The best is the one I see here in Hong Kong: you pay small taxes for it, you pay for anything non critical, you get a socialized base service of average quality with very very good private healthcare that you pay for. And a network of banks providing health insurance for an okay price. For instance, you can use taxpayers money to give birth if you want, but you don't choose the date, you don't get a room for long and no way you get a C-Section unless you risk dying. In the private hospital you pay a lot, get all those things, but it's not at all necessary. I really like this compromise, which in hindsight just is obvious and shows you the shark Americans and the hippies Europeans just can't make compromises. You shouldn't have to die because you can't afford a surgery, and you shouldn't have to work 4 months a year for the State because it can't afford to give surgery for every wart on every butthole.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > The European ones are vast communist machines that can't pay for themselves. Do you have any proof of that?
    - AdrianB1 6y ago
      A family member is an expert in this area working for the government in a high position for a long time and they update quarterly the estimations on when the system will fall, not if. The current calculation is less than 15 years and it is fairly constant for the past 10-15 years. In the discussions they have between countries the situation varies a lot, from countries that are going from default to default like Greece) or close (PIGS) to countries that are almost stable (Germany), but on average the situation is bad. For example I was told 10 years ago never to expect to retire because there will be no money for the public pension system when I will have the age. It is on an accelerating fall and the politicians are messing it up even further, pensions were increased by law by 40% about a year ago: if there is no future, you can start ruining the present.
      - ptsneves 6y ago
        This is a bit of a misterpretation. Yes they make that calculation but to know how to adjust the age of retirement and because there are shunt laws that limit the expenditure to a given percentage of gdp. Portugal(p in pigs) is such a country and this shunt law is a 2/3 law meaning if debt ceilings are overridden by government or parliament it will be struck down by the constitutional court. just recently there was such a law and it was promptly sent there. E
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    When I left Australia, which is now 14 years ago, so grain of salt: you paid 1% income tax for Medicare, unless you were above a certain income level, in which it became 1.5%. If you opted out of the system, you could purchase private insurance, and would not be subject to this tax. There was a floor, where below or near "minimum income" levels, you were also not required to pay this tax. > For instance, you can use taxpayers money to give birth if you want, but you don't choose the date, you don't get a room for long and no way you get a C-Section unless you risk dying. This makes absolutely no sense. Short of induction agents, which have varying degrees of efficacy, if you're not getting a C-section, the healthcare industry, hospital, don't decide when you give birth, you/your baby do.
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  As someone who was born under the NHS in Scotland, grew up in Australia under its Medicare system (and the introduction of partial privatiz(s)ation), and has lived in the US since 2006, no-one is laboring under that misapprehension. Medicare tax is indeed a line item on Australian taxation paperwork.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    I don't know where you get the impression that I'm criticizing the NHS or a nationalized Healthcare service. I'm all for a nationalized healthcare service. My issue is with people who pay nil significant taxes in Europe gloating ignorantly about how European Healthcare is free, and won't stop shitting on American Healthcare. Yeah, your healthcare is cheaper than the US but it isn't free. There is a whole bunch of middle class folks and upper class folks paying for it.
    - ratsforhorses 6y ago
      Just a thought, "paying nil significant taxes" would mean lower or nil income...? we could also include refugees, prisoners in that group I guess.... these people, may also be providing a huge extra to society in the form of being low paid, having future potential or not adding to externalisation costs such as increased infrastructure needs higher income earners do... also I think the main criticisms of the US health system is that insurance is in most cases part of the job contract and that there are huge (cost) inefficiencies due to insurers battling over coverage costs with health providers... as an aside I live in Romania and as a low income earner I forgoe insurance because it's a lot cheaper to get care when I need it
      - jschwartzi 6y ago
        > insurance is in most cases part of the job contract and that there are huge (cost) inefficiencies due to insurers battling over coverage costs with health providers. To say nothing of how maddening it is to have to change doctors every time we change jobs, or to lose coverage for certain conditions when we change jobs, or to have to perfectly time certain life events such as childbirth or pregnancy to either before or after we change jobs, or to make sure we don't get sick during the probationary period while we're changing jobs, and so on.
- FourthProtocol 6y ago
  Some examples would be useful. Yes, many that don't pay tax benefit from the government, and yes, you can view that as a working class paying for the unemployed. Imagine, if you will, a 50-year-old woman on the dole (she's paid a monthly sum by the government). In Germany, for instance, this is only paid if she can prove that she applied, and continues to apply for work/seek employment. It's a bit of a mad circle - she doesn't want work, because she has a comfortable, if meagre life. Of course she dutifully applies for employment every month, and occasionally lands an interview. She's been out of work for so long though, that's she's no longer employable. She's too old for manual labour, cannot type, doesn't do Internet. And so no one will have her. It's not ideal for someone expecting to get out what they put into the system, but it's a social safety net that's better than forcing people out onto the street. Will all the problems that brings. And yes, the 50-year-old gets "free" healthcare. Which I contribute to, from my hard work. And I think this system among the best on the planet.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    > And yes, the 50-year-old gets "free" healthcare. Which I contribute to, from my hard work. And I think this system among the best on the planet. I wish more people had that attitude. Instead, in the US, we have people actively making their own lives worse because they don't want to give others things they don't believe they "deserve". If taking more out of my paycheck would get all the homeless people off the streets, I would happily do that. I personally believe that everyone has a right to housing, but even if I didn't care about people, I'd be ok with it because getting homeless people off the streets makes my life better too. Ensuring that people aren't insecure about housing and food translates to lower crime rates and safer neighborhoods. It makes me genuinely angry that anti-welfare people don't get this, and actively lobby against their own interest. I'm sure there are some people who just believe that welfare programs don't work, and are against them on those grounds, but most of the rhetoric I hear seems to be around not giving people things they haven't worked for and don't deserve.
    - _carbyau_ 6y ago
      Your last paragraph is the bit that resonates with me. Paying taxes to treat people humanely and with dignity is a good option because when people are desperate, riots and violence are not far away. And if your thoughts are to push people to that extreme so you can be violent against them, then it is you who are the lesser person.
- ZuLuuuuuu 6y ago
  That is not reality, that is what American right thinks about European people. We of course know that we are paying for healthcare with our taxes, but we also know that in the end what we pay is lower than what we would pay without a government healthcare system. So we chose this healthcare system consciously.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
    Do we though? What % of the general population do you think can actually come close to estimate the real cost of their complete annual health care premium cost (let alone actual procedures or services like emergencies)? And what subset of that do you think would be incredibly shocked at the actual price ?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
inopinatus 6y ago
Given the venue of these remarks, and the otherwise reductio ad absurdum of the alternatives, we can surmise this is referring to free as in speech, not free as in beer, and they mean santé libre, to distinguish it from proprietary licensed healthcare.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago

The more correct term for universal healthcare rather than free should be cheaper as everyone with such systems wind up spending much less on healthcare than the USA. We basically spend as much per capita on our public system than other countries do on healthcare overall, and then we also have a private system that is even more costly.

rand49an 6y ago

America spends the highest amount per capita & the most in total terms by a large margin and they aren't able to cover 100% of their citizens. Nobody thinks that healthcare is magically free in the rest of the world, but at least in countries with socialised medicine people pay into a system that covers everyone in society.

thebruce87m 6y ago

I’ve never seen anyone argue that. Well, until now anyway.

dopidopHN 6y ago

You pay with your taxes. Is that this hard to understand? In France when my boss give me 1 euros, he has to give 0.33 cents to a found that goes toward my healthcare. Then most things are « free ». From regular doc appointments to oncologists. Here I pay 500$/month, and then some co-pay and then some more. It’s not that different.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
France doesn't have $20 aspirin pills.

ladyanita22 6y ago

Agreed