[epicureanideal]

So if we vote for a single payer healthcare system, we get a back door for government tyranny over every little aspect of our lives that they decide is bad for us, including as the science shifts? Don’t eat eggs or you lose your coverage, no wait, eat 3 eggs a week or you lose your coverage, no wait.. Sounds like a bad deal, and most Americans will take freedom over free health care if that’s the cost.

[TFYS]

Yes, having billions poured into creating foods that are as addictive as possible and manipulation campaigns to get people hooked is a much better system.

This system also affects your freedoms in many ways. If a large portion of the population gets fat, you have a smaller pool of people that are able to do physical work, making it more expensive for you. You have a lot more demand for healthcare, making it more expensive for you. You have people demanding car-centric infrastructure because they can't walk, and that will affect you. Etc.

[tornadofart]

It doesn't work like that.

In a single payer system, the government is mandated to provide you with health care, since you are paying for it with your taxes (or would be if your income was high enough), no exceptions.

Typical tools of such governments include:

- taxes on products which are deemed of danger to public health, for example taxes on cigarettes in the EU. The government is then mandated to invest these taxes into the health care system

- public health campaigns (ads etc.)

- age restrictions, as they exist on alcohol in the US.

Legislation shifts to represent newest advances in science, yes. That's not per se a bad thing.

Not every country with a single-payer system is an authoritarian communist hellscape, you know.

[jona-f]

That sound very reasonable and I'm inclined to agree, but empirically US health care system is the worst I know of. You're only free if you're rich and if you're rich you're not free, cause you've got so much to lose.

And from a more theoretical viewpoint the societal cost of unhealthy people is still there at the least in loss of productivity, so the argument for prohibition is still there and the US is only really liberal in things that are backed by wealthy corporations/people that have subverted the government.

In the end I guess freedom is the straw man here.

[hilux]

If you never used health insurance (which is paid for by more health-conscious people than you, on average), you'd have a more compelling case.

> most Americans will take freedom over free health care

When you're addicted to something (alcohol, nicotine, sugar, gambling, ...) is it really "freedom"?

[alpaca128]

This not only doesn’t happen, but those "tyrannical" systems also usually have lower minimum age requirements for alcohol consumption than the US, and healthcare is cheaper while people are healthier on average.

It is sad how so many people in the US were persuaded to be so afraid of supposed "communism" that they are actively voting against their interests.