One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service.
Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?
Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/tennessee-family-home-b...
I think it's even been given the unfortunate name 'pay to spray'. Fire prevention is just as much up for debate amongst people of a certain ideological bent as healthcare. It's the next logical step. Of course, most people don't want to live in that world which is why we have compulsory payments. Those who see them as a positive thing will probably always have to tolerate those who complain about how unfair they are.
That being said, humans are not very good at reasoning about risk. Fire is a life-destroying event disproportionate to the perceived risk. It can wipe a family out and has secondary impacts to the community in general. I think we should accept that. We don't have to periodically let someone's home burn to the ground to serve as a lesson to others.
Both are also dirt cheap (i.e., single-digit percentages of government spending) and very few people oppose their public provision. So why bring them up?
If my house catches on fire, and someone doesn't put it out, there is a reasonable chance it will spread to other houses. So it's a societal issue - at least at the local scale. As a societal issue, it makes sense for each member to be forced to pay for it.
If I break my leg, there is no increased chance that my neighbor will break his leg. So it's a personal issue. My neighbor receives no benefit from my leg being repaired, and is not harmed if isn't repaired. So why should he be forced to pay for it?
If you want to say that public health care should exist to provide vaccinations, in order to prevent the spread of disease to others in society, that would be a reasonable argument.
Your neighbor benefits by having an individual in whom society has invested millions in to train and care for back at work instead of being dead. That's a waste of money.
Humans are worth saving simply because we invest so much in them.
People should be forced to live within 5 miles of work, because they're not being productive during their commute. Also, HackerNews and reddit should be forcibly taken down because of their contribution to idleness at work.
In terms of diet, we tax cigarettes, alcohol and drugs (indirectly) - food that is net negative on society should have their negative externality priced via taxes.
It's pointless banning them (e.g. enforced diets) - see prohibition - leave it legal and tax to cover costs.
But is not a just personal issue. If you break your leg and don't have insurance, you could lose your house over medical bills. The bank will reposes and will write down losses over your mortgage. If your lot starts to look like crap the value of his house will be affected as well. If you have a wife and kids, your kids might end up having to go to school in a crappy part of town. So it might affect their education.
Just by breaking your leg could affect a lot more people than you first suspect. Of course if you had government provided insurance you would not have the risk of spreading this as much.
This idea that we are so independent and individualistic works perhaps in some kind of a romanticized world where you live in a compound in the woods that is self sufficient and you don't have to to worry or care about the outside world either bothering your or owing them anything.
Doesn't it bother you that an even-handed application of this principle leads to absurdity?
But actually it maybe be true that in some cases it is more beneficial overall to the society to just support the family for a while if say the breadwinner breaks a leg. That is better than a bankruptcy, loss of house, loss of job.
> Doesn't it bother you that an even-handed application of this principle leads to absurdity?
It doesn't because this has to be applied to a certain degree. Absolutely no safety net is not good, but it is not possible of feasible to just hand out money either.
Isn't that also true of food?
Giving people access to healthcare and fire protection doesn't create any bad incentives. You can't 'use' healthcare for monetary gain.
Giving people food, money etc, gives people incentives to not bother working.
Also I would say that a national health service ensures that the public is 'healthy'. Which affects us all, as diseases are transmitted etc. Just as the fire services ensures fires don't spread and burn down all the houses.
The same isn't true of giving people food.
I also am not sure it makes sense to lump together healthcare (which includes a lot of long-term preventative care like vaccines and lifestyle advice) and fire protection (which is mostly emergency damage control). A better analogy might be if the government provided free fire insurance covering everything citizens own -- actually, the US does this sort of thing with hurricanes and floods, so there's a fairly exact analogy, and it seems clear that it does create bad incentives to build and rebuild in hurricane-prone and low-lying areas.
Well yeah, but according to this kind of economistic thinking, paying a guy $40/hour instead of $20/hour encourages him to work half as many hours. Giving people anything for any reason, including as trade/payment, can always be construed as encouraging less work-ethic.
And likewise, withholding anything or inflicting any suffering or punishment can always be construed as encouraging work-ethic.
I find this kind of attitude totally bizarre. People do not stop having output just because they have food security. The notion that giving away food is bad because of work is a very capitalistic idea that actually serves to perpetuate hunger and starvation.
Giving handouts does far more harm than good. It keeps people down.
You mean, except for all the good incentives like achievement, mastery, purpose, learning, and contribution to a community that actual successful professionals are motivated by, rather than the motive against starvation that you seem to believe is the only reason anyone gets up in the morning?