Ok so part of this that gets glossed over is the real cost and real benefit of a universal healthcare system. Here is my rant.
There are costs of not caring for our populace that are born by everyone, regardless of whether you get sick or not. Illness cost us a half trillion a year in lost productivity as a nation, for example. Do you think that money is invisible and just goes away? No, it gets passed to the consumer. To ALL consumers, even those that don't get sick. Have you ever had to cover for a sick worker at your job? There are many many ways this hits everyone, not just those that get sick. Lost productivity is a major impact. It affects not just prices, but the growth of the economy in general, and the ability of the economy to recover from slams due to market forces. It increases subsidies, which increases tax burden. It is a vicious cycle that has a far greater impact than I believe anyone really knows. And it is directly affected to a non-insubstantial degree, by health of the populace. There are many other social and economic factors that ripple through society that spreads out the pain for not having adequate healthcare available to everyone. Even as simple as rising healthcare costs in general being tied in no small way to healthcare organizations needing to pay for emergency care for people with no way to pay.
We really need to think about healthcare as a utility. Government works to regulate utilities to make sure we can get power, gas, water, etc. to basically everyone in the population. When was the last time people were up in arms because millions of lower-income people didn't have access to electricity or clean water. When was the last time the company you worked for could cut your hours and make it so you couldn't get gas to heat your house? This is viewed as a basic price of admission in society, to provide these basic needs at a rate that the vast majority of people can afford. And the burden is spread out to allow this. We all pay for electricity, for example, and can control our costs somewhat by how we use power, but we also pay a portion of it to subsidize power production and allow the costs to be kept relatively low for everyone. Why do we view healthcare any differently?
The tired argument that "I don't get sick, so I shouldn't have to pay anything" is incredibly short-sighted. Everyone benefits from living in a society, whether you admit it or not. It takes PEOPLE to keep a society running, among other resources. Some of this is so basic that it should not even be debated. Keeping the most important resource you have in society (people) operating at peak efficiency does nothing but benefit EVERYONE regardless of whether a single individual needs healthcare less than most others.
Think about our road system, or school system. Everyone pays to support those. Why? Because a good school system provides for our future and makes life better for everyone EVEN IF YOU NEVER HAVE ANY CHILDREN. So you don't want to pay for schools because you choose not to have children. Well, do you like advances in science and medicine and technology? Does it improve your life at all? Where did it come from? It started IN A SCHOOL. So we accept that we pay for schools to keep the machine running into the future. Same with roads. "I don't even own a car, I shouldn't have to pay for road upkeep." Ok, do you ever buy anything? How did it get to the store? Do you ever need emergency help, or would you like to keep access to it if needed? Then you need good roads for the firetruck to drive on to put out your house-fire. So guess what, we all pay something to take care of our road system because IT BENEFITS EVERYONE TO DO SO. And because it is impossible to determine literally everyone's access and usage of services, or future needs, to allocate it EXACTLY as it might be used.
Why is medicine any different, at all? Some things should ABSOLUTELY NOT be driven by market forces alone. Do you want to wait on a road construction project so they can get the best deal and wait for the market to set the prices? I am pretty sure we all agree most road projects take too long as it is and are too disruptive. There are still some market forces at play, but we do not allow it to take things over because it is counterproductive when dealing with basic UTILITY topics.
Same should apply to medicine. It should not be a bargaining chip or a left to solely let the market set the rates, because it is one of those goods that people CANNOT do without, which kicks it out of basic supply-demand economic models. It needs to be viewed no differently than education or infrastructure, just the cost of doing business as a functioning society. And as such it needs to be available to all, reasonably priced, with reasonable choice and variety for all. Period. I see no further points of debate to be honest with you. Nothing else holds water. Any argument or solution has to encompass all of society and not just individual circumstances.
I am truly more libertarian than anything, but in my opinion it isn't about civil liberties, it is about creating a functioning and self-sustaining society. Choice can and should be part of it, but access to basic, adequate, and affordable medical care (to include mental health care I should add) should be viewed as a human right and a basic requirement for our society, not an economic or political battle-ground.
/soap-box
