Healthcare can be free. It has NOT been proven that it cannot work at all. It may not make money for the government, but last time I checked pretty much everything the government does in the interests of making society better will lose money (hence the need for taxes). If you think the “pay or else” system is in any way defendable then you are fooling yourself. There’s no reason an accident should mean that a person ends up in thousands of dollars of debt in order for their life to be saved. There’s also no reason why you should be forced to save up to pay for medical treatment to allow you lead a life without pain.

Try showing a little compassion. You pick out a couple of specific cases and then tar the whole collective needs of the community with the “I shouldn’t have to pay for it” attitude.

But let’s examine the cases you pointed out: You don’t want to pay for abortions, so how about someone who is raped? Or someone who has a condom break? Or hell, how about someone who makes a mistake and has unprotected sex (or have you never made a mistake in your life?). By your attitude those people should be denied treatment. The obesity thing: what of the cases where people an actual medical condition that prevents their metabolism from functioning properly?

You want a country to compare your so called “quality of life” to: try Australia. I noticed your linked article doesn’t mention Australia anywhere because it is a system that works as a safety net to provide care for those in need. We don’t have this notion of “I don’t have medical insurance, what am I going to do?” because quite frankly it would be a sorry state of affairs to be denying a person in need of medical attention because they cannot pay.

I can however give you numerous third world countries which share a similar approach to your idea that user pays or else user doesn’t get treated.

Fair enough things like non-essential plastic surgery.. But those things aren’t covered under Australian medicare anyhow (and I wouldn’t think would be covered under Kerry’s proposal either). It’s just common sense. But if has an expensive to treat condition but is not fortunate enough to have enough money to afford the treatment, by your logic they’re on their own. Or if someone is out of work, or in a low income job, or retired..

I imagine it is rather easy for you to take this selfish stance, I’m sure you currently have medical insurance. That’s not a problem, you have private cover, then you can use that to reduce the burden on the public system.

The notion of free health cover for essential medical needs is not a fundamentally flawed idea, and it should be a right for a member of any good society to expect medical help when needed. Taking back some of the money from those most able to afford it and providing a safety net for those who can’t afford it is a fantastic idea.

But you say:
“From an ideological perspective, it is insane to claim that this subsidized form of health care is a right.It is insulting to suggest that ANYONE’s rights involve taking money from me and giving it to them. That’s not a right, it’s theft, it’s income redistribution.”

Do you currently pay taxes? Last time I checked that was a form of income redistribution: taking a portion of salary from each person in sociey and spending it on the government/infrastructure and other supporting systems of the society. Is that theft? Well, it’s theft in the same way as your attitude is murder (“sorry: you can’t pay.. please go bleed to death in the gutter, so we can treat the guy behind you waving the credit card”)

Do you also think that education should be denied from anyone who cannot afford to pay a bucket load of cash? Or that the police should only arrest people when the person harmed can pay for the jail sentence? Or perhaps firefighters will get the owner of the burning house to swipe their credit card before they get the hoses out? I mean that’s fair enough isn’t it? Why should you pay for it, it’s not you that got beaten up, or had your house burn down! That’d be theft to provide those services to those people!

The unfortunate side affect of your approach is that the poor will stay poor, will have a miserable quality of life, will die younger and will be denied the basic rights to a life without pain and suffering.

Just so you know, my opinion is from the viewpoint of someone who has grown up in a country with free essential healthcare and I find it hard to imagine a situation where people are turned away when in need or a situation where people would even think of holding your opinion. Perhaps that’s a “shortcoming” of my upbringing to believe that a society should provide support those who are not lucky enough to be earning tonnes of cash.

If you don’t like Kerry, then fine.. That’s one thing. But at least do yourself the favour of finding a more intelligent viewpoint to argue rather than this selfish “I’m not paying for anyone else to receive medical help” attitude.

Nathan Lee

A whole lot of people in this country do have health care. With reforms, it could become more accessible to more people, and I hope for that, but “free” isn’t free. “Free” costs a trillion dollars.