US Universal Healthcare: How are we going to pay for it?

[Kasz216]

highwaystar101 said:

Kasz216 said:

highwaystar101 said:

HappySqurriel said:

 

irst off, did you ever consider that these people would make more money if they weren't given income support from the government? Its easy to become complaisant in a job, or to pay people 'Crap', if the government is willing to ensure that they have a living wage.

Beyond that, why isn't it an individuals responsibility to provide their own healthcare by making choices about what is important to them? If you look at your example and assume that these couples are smoking (roughly) a pack a day each, by simply quiting smoking or the government eliminating the tax on smoking, 70% of two income families on income support in the UK would have a massive portion of the money they needed to pay for healthcare; and they would have the choice to spend it on healthcare or to (potentially) put it towards something which might be worth more in the long run (like education to get better paying jobs).

Finally, obesity has been estimated to cost in the range of $1,500 per person in additional healthcare costs, do you believe that it is reasonable for the government to start charging households $1,500 tax for every member of the house who is obese?

First point, I think you've picked up on a small detail there, of course I acknowledge that if welfare didn't exist they could have more earning potential because the motivation exists. It was just a minor detail in the example. Even if welfare didn't exist you would still have poor people with little disposable income who unfortunately would damage their bodies without taking into account how they would eventually pay medical bills.

It's not an individuals responsibility to provide healthcare for two reasons in my opinion.

1. Healthcare should be a right wherever available and not a commodity,

2. People who live in 'poverty' are unlikely to seek out healthcare as pro-actively as a rich person because they would see it as a large cost which can be avoided.

This second point goes further in that if the tax was reduced or they stopped smoking alltogether, then the money they save 'could' go on healthcare. But these people are poor so they probably have other costs to take into consideration outside of healthcare such as housing and food which may not have been adequate before because they were living on such a tight budget.

Obesity is a problem, admittedly not in the same way as smoking is a choice (albeit an addictive choice), where as obesity is sometimes an unfortunate consiquence, my dad is obese but it's part of a glandular problem he developed in his 40's.

However, it could be feasable that some tax on unhealthy foods could go towards treatment of the people that eat high in fat foods anyway. So it doesn't go to just treat obese people but people who develop other conditions such as heart disease due to unhealthy diets. We do it with alcohol in this manner already and it would suprise me if we do it with unhealthy food.

Taxing a household direct due to obesity though is very unfair and I would rebel against such a move.

So you admit that taxes on cigarretes take money that some poor people need for food. Which was one of my points earlier everyone seemed to glaze over. Since these taxes are in fact very regressive since the poor are more likely the smoke.

The poor are more likely to eat junk food too actually so Rath's tax would hit them harder.

Hey the poor are just more likely to be sick in general. Since we're making people who cost the system more pay more money perhaps they should pay a higher tax.

Perhaps with the 15% extra disposable income they would choose to eat more healthily, a luxury not available to them on a small budget because junk food is cheap and subsequently inadequete food. You know, like I said.
Perhaps if there was some way to tax the unhealthy food and loosen tax on healthy food so that the healthy food is an alternative they can afford, hmmm.

And yes the poor are more likely to get sick, and that's a good reason to support national health if you ask me.

Healthy food isn't taxed... at all.  At least not in the United States.

So if we applied this in the US.  Junkfood would be more expensive and the poor couldn't afford food. 

Although healthy food is actually cheaper then junk food.  Poor people buy junkfood because they work a lot and don't have the same luxuaries to be able to go to a market weekly to pick up fresh food.

Well they do but it'd take up even more of their time and they tend to already feel pretty time crunched.