Jump to content

Free health care dilemma


Zcrab

Recommended Posts

I thought about these two situations, and I do not know what would be better. This is all based on that you live in a country where healthcare is free and paid through taxes.

 

If you inflict damege on yourself and need medical help, should you get the help needed absoloutely free or should pay a little bit for it since it was your own fault?

 

Example:

If you have been smoking multiple cigarettes a day for 30 years and you get lung cancer, should you be threated for free or pay an amount because it was you own fault?

 

If you have been eating unhealthy your whole life and become obese and get diabetes, should you pay for it yourself or have the help needed for free?

 

Even though that you have paid your taxes, the medical help you need might be more expensive than what you ever paid. There are more situations but this should make it easier to understand, really need your opinions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While it logically makes sense that you shouldn't get free treatment if you intentionally harmed yourself, basically everything we do is intentionally harmful.

 

Sitting at a desk for long periods of time, in what's like a very bad posture. Eating processed foods (which is the vast majority of our food), eating too much salt. Not drinking enough. Sitting in the sun too much. Not sitting in the sun enough. Driving and getting into an accident. Using cell phones, exposing ourselves to other forms of radiation. Rock climbing, playing baseball, swimming, etc.... 

 

One chooses to smoke cigarettes just the same as one chooses to drive a car/go swimming in the ocean/go sky diving. You don't smoke cigarettes with the intention of getting sick and you don't driver a car with the intention of getting into an accident. 

 

If health insurance only covered damage that you didn't inflict upon yourself, then the vast majority of health care treatments wouldn't be covered. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes. Health care exists to make people healthy, it shouldn't discriminate based on who the people are and what they did to themselves to get there. Education and other prevention stuff is how you get less cases of smoking and diabetes etc. not by refusing to treat the people

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators

This is an oversimplification of a complex topic. For one, when you buy cigarettes or tobacco in England, what you are paying is 74% tax. This both discourages use, and helps pay for care for related health issues. I think that's a reasonable method of people paying for their health-related issues. Anything more direct gets incredibly complicated when there are multiple underlying factors to pretty much every health problem, not to mention the cycle of economic inequality and ignorance that makes these issues FAR more common in the poor than the wealthy. Yes, individuals are responsible for their own behaviours, but when certain health issues are population-wide, individual solutions are incredibly short sighted. Depends on your priorities I guess - are you out to save money or are you out to improve population health? If it's the latter, the solution is more govt money into public health projects and education/prevention with long term goals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

if the health care is paid through taxes then it isn't free

 

and if you are smoking for 30 years, but paying your taxes, then you have essentially paid for your treatment

 

 

 

on an ethical note, no I don't think it should discriminate against peoples lifestyle choices

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Even though that you have paid your taxes, the medical help you need might be more expensive than what you ever paid.

That's basically the point of universal healthcare and other socialist systems though. The whole reason the system exists is so that everyone can have access to the medical services they need, regardless of cost. There will always be people who take more money from the government than what they put in, but there are also many people who put more money into the system then they take out, so it balances out and gives everyone access to what they need.

 

Needless to say, the best thing we can do for these kinds of healthcare situations is not to deny service to unhealthy people, but to promote healthy lifestyles and try to prevent people needing treatment in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

-snip-

 

-snip-

 

But is there not a difference bewteen doing something that increases your risk of lung cancer as much as smoking is different from a basketball player who gets a fatal injury that was unexpected? Smoking for 30 years you can't say that lung cancer was unexpected, as you must have heard about the dangers of smoking.

 

Obviously we can't apply the principle to everything, but smoking has no positive effects except for the rush that you don't need.

 

-snip-

 

Yes I forgot about the taxes on cigarettes, but what about other things that cause people to need more medical help than others? For example those who have a bad diet, taxes on food are significantly lower.

 

Not taking either side here, since both sides have equally good arguments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But is there not a difference bewteen doing something that increases your risk of lung cancer as much as smoking is different from a basketball player who gets a fatal injury that was unexpected? Smoking for 30 years you can't say that lung cancer was unexpected, as you must have heard about the dangers of smoking.

 

Obviously we can't apply the principle to everything, but smoking has no positive effects except for the rush that you don't need.

 

 

Yes I forgot about the taxes on cigarettes, but what about other things that cause people to need more medical help than others? For example those who have a bad diet, taxes on food are significantly lower.

 

Not taking either side here, since both sides have equally good arguments.

Your country actually tried a fat tax, didn't it? It failed miserably since everybody just drove to Germany to get their unhealthy food if I recall correctly.Anyway I do believe that taxes and other incentives (both good and bad such as telling kids fat food is bad and raising tax on it). But it needs to be done EU wide I think, because otherwise people just drive over the border

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your country actually tried a fat tax, didn't it? It failed miserably since everybody just drove to Germany to get their unhealthy food if I recall correctly.Anyway I do believe that taxes and other incentives (both good and bad such as telling kids fat food is bad and raising tax on it). But it needs to be done EU wide I think, because otherwise people just drive over the border

 

It was more of a try to lower taxes, but a healthier country was part of it. It didn't work because people just bought the food anyway, sales of butter only fell by 10-15% or something like that. People already drove to Germany to buy cheaper food, but certainly not the whole country.

 

That's basically the point of universal healthcare and other socialist systems though. The whole reason the system exists is so that everyone can have access to the medical services they need, regardless of cost. There will always be people who take more money from the government than what they put in, but there are also many people who put more money into the system then they take out, so it balances out and gives everyone access to what they need.

 

Needless to say, the best thing we can do for these kinds of healthcare situations is not to deny service to unhealthy people, but to promote healthy lifestyles and try to prevent people needing treatment in the first place.

 

Of course somebody will always use more than others, it's the whole point of "free" healthcare that everybody can have it if they need it. But when something like lung cancer caused by smoking then you are in some way abusing the system. Since smoking does not have any positive effects on you except the rush you get from it. Compared to a sports injury that was unexpected, lung cancer by smoking can be expected if you smoke alot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Obviously we can't apply the principle to everything, but smoking has no positive effects except for the rush that you don't need.

If somking had no positive effects, nobody would smoke. But there are, for example, positive short term social effects (people who started smoking because it made them look cool) & positive phychological effects (people who smoke to calm nerves)

 

Not weighing those off the positive to the obviously negative long term risks might indeed be stupid, but then what's the difference between that an not enough exercise, bad diet, etc ...

 

Should health care cover the pain meds you'll need for your back in 20 years, because you sit too much in front of yuor computer?

Should health care cover the stomach cancer you'll have in 20 years, becasue today you eat too much meat?

 

Because, while you say

 

Obviously we can't apply the principle to everything, but smoking has no positive effects

One could equally say

 

Obviously we can't apply the principle to everything, but eating too much has no positive effects

Obviously we can't apply the principle to everything, but sitting too much has no positive effects

and in fact, an argument could be made those latter two have less positive effects then smoking (they are usually products of us being laisy)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...