[tt24]

This is the logical conclusion when you socialize healthcare.

If you’re pro NHS / single payer, you *must* support this. As well as banning drugs, sugar, extreme sports, unprotected sex, and other high risk behavior. Anything short of this just doesn’t make sense.

[WarmWash]

We can just tax the rich to cover the cost of our personal decisions. Which is their fault anyway because I wouldn't have gotten diabetes if they didn't shove that junk take out food down my throat.

[fontain]

I assume you’re being sarcastic but just in case: the goal of single payer healthcare isn’t to spend the least amount of money on healthcare. The goal of single payer healthcare is to guarantee everyone a minimum quality of life. You can believe that the minimum quality of life includes the option to engage in unprotected sex and sky diving.

[tt24]

I’m not being sarcastic. If you live in a society that chooses to force people to pay for other’s healthcare costs, you must support banning high risk behavior.

Not out of frugality. It’s a simple issue of fairness. 5% of the healthcare consumers will result in 95% of the costs. Why is it fair that the 5% that choose to engage in high risk behavior are subsidized at the expense of the 95% that choose not to?

[intended]

What is this comment? Yes, society curtails behaviors?

We wear helmets and seatbelts?

Insurance is entirely about paying a small amount so that the costs of being on the wrong side of bad luck doesn’t pauper your citizenry. A single payer system wildly reduces the amount that has to be paid, while increasing service outcomes since now you can negotiate with drug companies.

I would happily pay for that kind of system as well, because I am happy to ensure that the rest of the nation is better off.

[tt24]

Close! Insurance is a transaction I consent to engaging in, but a single payer system is not that.

[intended]

But… wait… what? Based on you what you say… why do you put money into an insurance system? It sounds like you want to make the most rational choice, but you are working off of a model of insurance that doesn’t make sense.

The maximally effective version, with the least cost, and greatest coverage is one that distributes costs across the largest pool of individuals. Which is a single payer system.

[tt24]

I put money into an insurance system to diffuse risk away from myself.

> The maximally effective version, with the least cost, and greatest coverage

It would be even more effective to just enslave a bunch of people and force them to pay for my healthcare, but I don’t advocate for that because it’s immoral and unfair.

[mancerayder]

You are already paying for other people's healthcare costs, whether it's private or public!

If you pay for home insurance (you kind of have to unless you own your home outright or are renting), you're paying for other people's fire or water damage. And one day they might pay for yours.

If there's a lot of fires or water damage, everyone's costs go up.

[bitshiftfaced]

It's not a perfect analogy because of factors that affect individual policies, such as the replacement cost of the home, moving next to a fireworks store, moving into a flood zone, etc. You pay more when your home is more at risk.

[tt24]

That’s a consensual transaction that I choose to engage in. Doesn’t apply to single payer or the NHS

[saalweachter]

If you are housed, you are almost certainly paying for home insurance, even if you rent.

[tt24]

1. Many landlords don’t require tenant’s insurance. 2. If you choose to get a mortgage you have to pay for homeowner’s insurance yes. You have the option to not get a mortgage if you prefer.

Notice how in both of the above, there is no third party forcing me to pay for anybody’s bad choices.

[fontain]

Society is by definition “forcing” people to carry the burden of other’s choices. You’re drawing an entirely arbitrary line at direct taxation. Why is it “fair”? Because society isn’t zero sum. We each give and take in different ways.

[tt24]

Not sure how much a skydiving soda drinking drug user “””gives””” to society haha

[fontain]

Your perception of drug users is woefully out of date. The most “valuable” members of society by your metric (contributing tax dollars) are using a lot of drugs. The U.K. upper middle class are snorting so much coke.

[tt24]

Sorry I don’t believe this

[noplacelikehome]

Why must I do anything of the sort? As with all things there is a balance to be found that does not necessarily mean zero.

I can both support healthcare that’s free at the point of access (this distinction is important, because the NHS is not strictly speaking a “single payer” system, as both National Insurance and tax revenues from e.g. alcohol and cigarette sales are used to fund it) and individual liberty, even if that increases the cost of healthcare delivery. The NHS is not evidence of an authoritarian regime, it is evidence of the state playing a role in maintaining baseline standards of health, largely for the purposes of maintaining a healthy workforce.

Americans have such a wildly warped worldview in my experience.

[tt24]

The 5% of high risk healthcare consumers will result in 95% of the costs. It’s not fair for the 95% of low risk people to subsidize the remainder.

[tastyfreeze]

Now to take the last logical step like Canada and suggest assisted suicide to the high cost patients.

[BLKNSLVR]

Only those who have become high cost patients due to choosing to put themselves at risk for years.

[tastyfreeze]

Admittedly I have only read of Canadian Healthcare, but, that is not what I have read. Terminal patients and the elderly are offered death as a treatment. Cancer patients are the most common. About 5% of deaths in Canada are from the MAID program.

[masfuerte]

You are wrong. The swingeing taxes on cigarettes already cover the healthcare costs and the smokers die early saving even more money.

[bitshiftfaced]

> smokers die early saving even more money.

I thought cancer care tended to be pretty expensive. Not sure that your math is so clear cut.

[masfuerte]

There's good news there too. Smokers don't just die of cancer. They also suffer from a variety of other fatal conditions.

[postepowanieadm]

Not really: you want to prevent people from being passive smokers, and add sufficient taxation on cigarettes.

[keybored]

Taxes as they currently exist are a bandaid on wealth inequality. Getting rid of rich people parasitism would be a better way to balance the budget than either right-libertarian principles or taxing commoners for their stress relief like tobacco.

Though judging by the amount milords in the article I suspect that is far ways off.

[tt24]

Wealth inequality is a nonissue. Nobody has ever been able to provide me with any evidence to the contrary.

[keybored]

Not an insignificant amount of ink has been spilled on this over the centuries. So I guess you will never be convinced otherwise.

[tt24]

Not until someone provides evidence for it no