[streety]

"Tend to" is a nice statistic on a population level but has little relevance to you or me as individuals.

I live in the UK were basic health care is free so perhaps I don't have the experience to comment but healthcare wouldn't be somewhere I would be trying to save a few pennies/cent.

[byrneseyeview]

I live in the UK were basic health care is free

No, you like in the UK, where basic healthcare is paid for by taxpayers. It doesn't become free because the money is taken rather than given.

[petercooper]

By that argument, it's not "free" to just walk down the street, because your tax dollars are paying to maintain that street - and reading a book at the library isn't "free" because you're paying for it through taxes. Heck, almost nothing's "free" by those criteria.

[DanielBMarkham]

Lots of stuff is free.

Come couch surf at my place. I pay for it, but you enjoy it: it's free to you. Here's an ice cream cone. Once again, I paid, but you enjoy it.

To you, it's free.

Now -- use the powers of government to force people to pay taxes to buy you an ice cream cone? It's not free to you any more.

The danger is that you start feeling like I'm going to give you ice cream cones anytime. I can correct you of that assumption pretty quickly. But when the giver is some anonymous blob, starts looking like free money.

[byrneseyeview]

The marginal cost of walking down the street is nearly zero. Likewise, the marginal cost of reading a book is minimal. But since we're discussing an industry with very high marginal costs (doctors' time is expensive!), not to mention higher depreciation (libraries have plenty of books that are more than fifty years old; hospital equipment ages a little faster).

You're right. Almost nothing is 'free' by those criteria. Economists like to say that "There ain't no such thing as free lunch."

[pietro]

Absolutely. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

[streety]

A fair point, I should have phrased that differently. What I meant to say was that basic healthcare as a cost is independent of salary.

Having only paid tax for one year of my life so far perhaps it is easier than I had imagined to adopt the notion that other peoples money = free.

[axod]

It's a hell of a lot cheaper than the US in any event, and is something you never have to worry about.

[byrneseyeview]

Okay, so it has a cost, and you're encouraged to ignore that cost. I don't think this is a good thing.

[olefoo]

It does reduce a source of friction in the economy, people aren't going to stick with crappy underperforming companies just because they have health care.

Social health insurance is a larger risk pool, and if managed correctly should be a lower cost overall; something which is borne out by the UNHCF numbers.

The essentially random and punitive nature of health care financing in the US means there are plenty of people who are foregoing entrepeneurial activities because the health risk is too high for them to do without the bargaining power of a large employer to restrain the cozily corrupt arrangement that makes health 'insurance' one of the most profitable businesses in the world.

By supporting private health insurance you are essentially supporting a barrier to entry in all industries...

[axod]

So do most government controlled facilities. Everything you get "free" costs in the long run, but something as basic as health insurance should be something that is 'free' for everyone regardless of their circumstances. Also the idea of big companies profiting from illness is not good IMHO

In the US you pay a massive amount towards warfare - I don't think that is a good thing.

[byrneseyeview]

Also the idea of big companies profiting from illness is not good IMHO

Ah. You know, I never really thought about how when I buy food, I am helping big corporations profit from hunger; when I buy books, I am helping big corporations profit from ignorance; when I buy clothes, I help big corporations profit from the wrath of nature. Fortunately, I am more concerned with getting what I want than with worrying that someone might, as a terrible side effect, benefit from my actions.

something as basic as health insurance should be something that is 'free' for everyone regardless of their circumstances.

But it's only 'free' because the necessary resources are taken away from other people. Saying you are entitled to healthcare is saying that no doctor or nurse is entitled to their own time -- it's yours, until you declare yourself satisfied with the health care you've gotten. Similarly, no researcher is entitled to his own ideas, property rights dissolve when the property is something you want but for which you are unwilling to bargain, etc. That is barbaric.

In the US you pay a massive amount towards warfare - I don't think that is a good thing.

Neither do I. Unfortunately, the cheap kinds of war are unpopular.

[axod]

Your argument is bogus. Food is an ongoing thing. We never stop being hungry. We always need food.

Medicine however, we need as long as we are sick. Therefore, there's quite an incentive for medical companies to keep us sick so we'll keep using their medicine.

Doesn't that worry you? Don't you see a sort of conflict of interests there between them wanting to cure you, and them wanting to make money?

If they develop a one shot cure that is cheap, and an ongoing vaccine that people need once a year, obviously they'll hide the cheap cure, and get you to sign up for once a year medicine, because it'll make them more money.

[petercooper]

Whether it's a good thing isn't in the perception but the reality. The reality is that costs within the UK NHS are significantly lower than those in the US with its $50-per-mile ambulance rides and $10 aspirins.

While paying for medicine from tax money makes it look like more of a free ride, and potentially open to abuse, it seems that having a cartel of medical insurance companies and hospitals all jacking up the fees works out a lot worse for users in the long run.