Ah but sofaspud, say you are driving (to work, the grocery store or whatever) and some bozo driving drunk hits your car at 100km/hr, leaving you hospitalized for months and racking up medical bills to the tune of a few hundered thousand or so. Why should I pay for your healthcare cost (I am just assuming you would be unable to cover such an amount, if you can cover that kind of expense just assume it's somebody who can't.) through an extra cost on my insurance premiums? Because that is how it's covered at the moment, since doctors need to be paid, electricity is required, etc.
Now in a true free-market 'utopia' the hospital would kick out your lazy ass for not having earned enough money before your luck ran out even if it kills you. Perhaps they would even let you pay a little extra to make your death quick and painless. But we don't live in such an 'utopia' (thank socialism) and instead we expect hospitals to care for people and save them if possible, but that requieres money, and that money has to come from somewhere. At the moment it's coming out of a tax on everyone who does buy insurance, which together with some other quirks of the system tends to drive prices up, everybody but the insurers can agree that this is the worst outcome of the design.
Without insurance you are basically running a gamble, but if you lose it's everyone with insurance that pays, not you. That is a freedom I object to, much like I would object to the freedom not to pay taxes. Then again you are paying for part of your family so your likely hospital costs would be covered.
And so you really don't have a choice on whether to get healthcare, some base level is always provided, the only choice you get is if you want to pay for yourself and the freeloaders or not. And when that is the choice it makes a lot of rational sense to be a freeloader, which in turn drives the extra pricetag on insurance up, etc. You can't have your cake and eat it too, either you have socialized healthcare and hospitals take care of people or you have a free-market system where there will always be plenty of fresh bodies at the hospital curbside.
That is how the danish system kinda works (you have the option to be exempt form the tax or at least most of it if you buy private insurance). But there is no such thing as an EU system of healthcare, each country has their own version.
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E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Now in a true free-market 'utopia' the hospital would kick out your lazy ass for not having earned enough money before your luck ran out even if it kills you. Perhaps they would even let you pay a little extra to make your death quick and painless. But we don't live in such an 'utopia' (thank socialism) and instead we expect hospitals to care for people and save them if possible, but that requieres money, and that money has to come from somewhere. At the moment it's coming out of a tax on everyone who does buy insurance, which together with some other quirks of the system tends to drive prices up, everybody but the insurers can agree that this is the worst outcome of the design.
Without insurance you are basically running a gamble, but if you lose it's everyone with insurance that pays, not you. That is a freedom I object to, much like I would object to the freedom not to pay taxes. Then again you are paying for part of your family so your likely hospital costs would be covered.
And so you really don't have a choice on whether to get healthcare, some base level is always provided, the only choice you get is if you want to pay for yourself and the freeloaders or not. And when that is the choice it makes a lot of rational sense to be a freeloader, which in turn drives the extra pricetag on insurance up, etc. You can't have your cake and eat it too, either you have socialized healthcare and hospitals take care of people or you have a free-market system where there will always be plenty of fresh bodies at the hospital curbside.
Quote:I'd rather pay more in taxes, similar to what I understand is how the EU system works.
That is how the danish system kinda works (you have the option to be exempt form the tax or at least most of it if you buy private insurance). But there is no such thing as an EU system of healthcare, each country has their own version.
-*-*-*-
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."