I assure you, if you measured the amount of hours people in America spend talking about healthcare, health insurance, and employer insurance policies in the workplace, you'd really see how anxious we are as a society because we simply have no great guarantee of something as basic as healthcare. It's like walking on thin ice.
As a society, we decided we are (generally) ok to pay for a road even if someone speeds or drives drunk on it, or we are fine to pay for good public education even if many kids drop out of school, because on the whole, these things are a net benefit to society when more of the population can take advantage of it.
Why isn't healthcare one of those things? I used to date a woman who grew up in Canada, and she talked about how strong dental care was there, where all the kids were taught the right habits for dental care automatically. IT didn't matter what money you had, you all had access to not only good dental care, but also information about what makes your teeth go bad, etc.
Similarly, in the US maybe we would actually have less obesity with a combination of preventative care and more education about some of these things. I'm not saying we'd eradicate it of course. But we'd most definitely have less.
I can't imagine someone would be even more irresponsible with their health if medical care was free. Only because the opposite isn't true (people aren't less reckless just because medical care is so expensive)
As a society, we decided we are (generally) ok to pay for a road even if someone speeds or drives drunk on it, or we are fine to pay for good public education even if many kids drop out of school, because on the whole, these things are a net benefit to society when more of the population can take advantage of it.
Why isn't healthcare one of those things? I used to date a woman who grew up in Canada, and she talked about how strong dental care was there, where all the kids were taught the right habits for dental care automatically. IT didn't matter what money you had, you all had access to not only good dental care, but also information about what makes your teeth go bad, etc.
Similarly, in the US maybe we would actually have less obesity with a combination of preventative care and more education about some of these things. I'm not saying we'd eradicate it of course. But we'd most definitely have less.
I can't imagine someone would be even more irresponsible with their health if medical care was free. Only because the opposite isn't true (people aren't less reckless just because medical care is so expensive)