[pandaman]

One thing people miss about government provided healthcare is that it's easy to be made mandatory. If government provides your health care it's only natural if it directs you to a healthier life to save people's money. I, for one, don't want "doctor's orders" to become actual orders enforced by police.

[alkonaut]

> If government provides your health care it's only natural if it directs you to a healthier life to save people's money.

Yes. And conversely, if you provide MY healthcare (by your taxes) I'm very much concerned about YOUR ability to work and pay taxes, which is effectively the same thing.

This is exactly why we have seatbelt laws. Your seatbelt just makes you less of a dead person so you can pay for your healthcare (and mine). And when/if you have an accident it makes you a person with two broken wrists that costs my taxes less than if you were a person with critical injuries - so I'd rather pay for your damages if you wear a seatbelt.

See this is also an important point: a high-tax society also requires a sense that tax money is well spent. This means that it can't feel like the money is spent "on someone else", you can't have a feeling among the population that tax money is often wasted, or that it's spent on wars (for example). If money was spent on healthcare for people who didn't want to use seatbelts - I'd be less willing to pay taxes. So my high taxes require these kinds of laws. Still, people are free to eat pizza and beer 24/7 and I still pay for their healthcare - because the alternative would be a too big government involvement in peoples lives. All they can do is tax beer higher, not much more.

Now, of course all of these limitations of your freedoms has to be weighed against the value they provide. The cost of people driving around without seatbelts is huge to socitey. The cost for an individual to wear as seatbelt is tiny. So it's a no brainer even in the most liberal societies.

[pandaman]

Kinda like that. Except, while you can still refuse to wear seatbelt (pay fine or don't ride in cars or trucks at all) you won't be able to refuse mandatory health care. US already has a history of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#...

[alkonaut]

> you won't be able to refuse mandatory health care.

You mean you won't be able to refuse paying for it (that might be the case) or not able to refuse actually receiving the care (no one will force you)

The only exception is vaccination possibly, which should be legally required.

[pandaman]

You won't be able to refuse receiving it. Did you read the link? People had been forcefully sterilized in the US all the way till 1970s, even without public healthcare.

[notahacker]

The US government carrying out forcible sterilizations of course points to the well-understood fact that universal healthcare is neither necessary nor sufficient for forced medical procedures, and this objection to state-funding healthcare is an entirely bogus one.

[alkonaut]

> You won't be able to refuse receiving it. Did you read the link? People had been forcefully sterilized in the US all the way till 1970s, even without public healthcare

I saw the link but didn't see the connection between "public universal healthcare" and "forced healthcare practiced on people". Can you elaborate on that connection?

publicly funded universal healthcare is about how healthcare is funded. How it's performed is a separate matter.

[pandaman]

I agree with the connection explained in this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15166296

Or, to give an example of this actually taking place, look at the education. It's funded by the government and also is mandatory and enforced by the government. It does not necessary have to follow, in other countries with free public education you won't get arrested for not sending your kids to school. But it could turn the way it's turned in the US just as well.

[nothrabannosir]

Yes, these kind of theoretical arguments are so important and constructive when scores of people are actually in serious trouble today, in the real world.

"The police enforcing doctor's orders." Give me a break. I'm all for healthy debate but come on. This is the most inane argument I've ever heard about universal health care, and I've heard quite a few.

Sorry for not being more constructive, I just can't see this line of reasoning go anywhere useful.

[pandaman]

Theoretical? I've been living in the USSR. It's been very practical there.

[gattilorenz]

Maybe the fact that it was a dictatorship, not public healthcare, has something to do with that?

[pandaman]

I assure you, there was public healthcare in the USSR and I don't see how it's being a dictatorship has anything to do with the healthcare enforcement? You think people won't vote a representative who will want to establish mandatory rehab for drug users in the USA, for example?

[alkonaut]

> You think people won't vote a representative who will want to establish mandatory rehab for drug users in the USA, for example?

I don't think people think of that as healthcare but as a sentence for doing something criminal. Just like we lock insane murderers up and force them to undergo psychologicalt treatment (instead of sending them to prison which is often legally dubious if someone is clinically insane) that kind of rehab is basically treatment forced on someone for committing a crime, not some part of a public/universal healthcare program. Separate topic.

[pandaman]

Drug use is not a crime in general (there could be some circumstances making it one, I am not a lawyer, but let's take some legal drugs, like alcohol). Rehab is a health institution, people go there voluntarily and on their own dime all the time. In the USSR people suffering from alcoholism (a health condition, addiction to alcohol) were sent to rehab involuntarily. Do you think this is possible only under a dictature and the people of the US won't ever support such a measure? Before you reply, I'd like you to consider that people of the US had banned alcohol in the Constitution at one point, not so far in the past.

[pjc50]

Already happens. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/27/mandat...

So the US manages to have mandatory rehab without public healthcare. The two are really not related.

[pandaman]

You are not the first one to use this argument. Somehow you believe is that if government can do something without public health care it means it won't do it with public health care for sure. Did I understand it correctly?

If so, let's try it on some other topic. E.g. "Government is already wiretapping and spying on citizens communications so providing public Internet is completely safe and in no way government is going to be spying on it!". Does it work for you?

[AsyncAwait]

Ugh, that doesn't normally happen in Western Europe, but if your argument is that you'd rather see thousands of people not receiving healthcare than an odd incident where someone was forced, then I am not sure you have your priorities straight.

[colde]

And perhaps that viewpoint has skewed your outlook somewhat. I haven't seen anything close to that nightmare scenario in Denmark, and indeed the rest of Scandinavia. What comes closest is taxing unhealthy food, which i tend to agree with.

[crummy]

Do the police enforce doctor's orders in the USSR?

[vidarh]

Are there any examples of countries where anything remotely like that exists, despite socialised care?