There are some attempts going on to introduce a healthcare system akin to European NHS's in the United States, which has been pretty divisive politically. Disregarding Obamacare itself, what are your thoughts on a European-style system in which healthcare is paid through tax dollars instead of private doctor's bills? Leave your reasoning in the comments.
(sorry, I tried to post a poll like this earlier but I accidentally posted it before I had laid out all the options and I couldn't change or delete it)
What are your thoughts on European-Style Universal Healthcare? 42 votes
Strongly for tax-paid healthcare
Mostly for tax-paid healthcare
Neutral
1 vote
Mostly against tax-paid healthcare
Strongly against tax-paid healthcare
0 ·
Comments
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." -United States Declaration of Indepedence
However, from reading the thread I see you mainly refer to the UK system. It's a noble and efficient end goal in itself, to have every citizen covered under one plan (generally speaking, of course). If there was a specific policy blueprint highlighting how we would pay for it, what benefits it would cover, if we would allow insurance companies as other universal systems do, and it was politically possible, I would happily get behind it.
But until that happens, my support lies with the Affordable Care Act. In a short amount of time, the uninsured rate dropped from 18.6 percent to 11.9 percent. While there are many problems with it (including rising costs, underinsurance, and undesired mandates), it's a pragmatic step in the right direction. In fact, perhaps the GOP ideas of deregulation and patient choice would address these issues. Politics is a complex field.
On what basis are you strongly against tax-paid healthcare?
So, as a European, I'm obviously biased here, but I can tell you, that having the state heavily involved in healthcare is awesome
[edit] I actually wanted to refer to this
The problem is that doctors don't really care about helping patients they care about getting paid. They will off ten recommend treatments that are not really nessicary when safer options are avalible because they cost more and can charge more in the future from the side effects you get later on.
Think about it, if they actually cured anything they'd be eliminating the need for their jobs, no more repeat buisness, no more customers, no more doctors. Their job is to make sure people need them so they can keep getting paid. And they have the highest paying jobs in the country.
When our doctors are motivated by greed rather than helping people no matter how we pay for health care we get screwed. What we really need is a nonprofit system where all the money they make goes into cures so we can eventually eliminate the need to even have doctors. They shouldn't be able to profit from other people suffering.
And considering that at least here in Germany, but to my knowledge also in a lot of other places, we have a very big lack of all kinds of health care professionals that is only going to get worse with the aging population I would love to have a solution that would eliminate the need for those professions. But especially because modern medicine is so good and people get older, but also live longer with serious conditions, health care costs and the need for well-trained professionals is only going to get worse.
To get back from that tangent: I think tax-paid health-care is a good idea. Yes, that means the working population will have to pay for others who might never be able to work and there is a certain unfairness in that, but it also gives everyone a security.
That being said there is no one size fits all solution. Even within a fully or partially tax-paid system, there can be a lot of differences and I have so far seen non that I fully agree with, only certain advantages and disadvantages in each of them.
This became Ellster.
Elster is the German word for magpie.
Therefore I am sometimes called Mag Pie. Although my name is not Mag. But I do like pie.