# Devil's advocate: saving America from socialized medicine. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 26, 2009, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032 "2009-01-26T07:39:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/181 "2009-01-30T01:33:29Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > [Here](http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml) is an excellent source of information on coverage for employed people. > > Are all that 38% of workers without insurance slackers? I suspect lots of them have high school diplomas. Not everyone can be rocket scientists like you and me - don’t you think people living up to their capabilities deserve to be able to have their families treated? On my dime? Because they can’t be bothered to live within their means? Which is what it boils down to - instead of buying a private policy, these people choose to spend their money on something else. Somehow, somewhere down the line, people have gotten the idea that no matter how poor they are, they _deserve_ the “American dream”, right now, whether they have come close to earning it or not. And the handwringers support this idea by continuing to petition the taxpayers to give the “poor” more and more. I have no idea why those 38% don’t have insurance, and your rather biased cite doesn’t say either, just that they can’t get it thru their employers any more. That doesn’t mean they can’t get insurance. > [@](#): > > Sure. We have a cafeteria benefits system, so I get a certain amount of funny money every year, and can add benefits with real money beyond that. Basic medical coverage is required. I think you may be able to get out of it if you can prove you are covered by someone else, but am not sure. Thats … scary. > [@](#): > > We can trade anecdotes until the cows come home about irresponsible people at all income levels. I know doctors living in La Jolla without any savings. Yes it isn’t just the poor that can be irresponsible, but it is them that you all want me to cover with my taxes, not doctors in La Jolla. > [@](#): > > These are people trying to get ahead by buying the cheapest house they could and at least getting into the game. I’d suspect that a lot of these people (and I have anecdotal evidence from the Times which doesn’t count either) have been working hard, trying to make ends meet, and then getting zapped by illness, and, even worse, inability to work. So, then, buying a house wasn’t exactly a good idea was it? You think it responsible to put all of your money into buying a house on the assumption that you will be able to continue to work for the next 15-30 years? Or maybe it might be smarter to wait until you have savings/investments/whatever that you could fall back on to pay the mortgage? How much could the mortgage on a $330K house be that they got so far behind so fast that they face foreclosure? > [@](#): > > Fine. We’re talking medical coverage. In this case people get bankrupted by disaster by definition. Do you think that everyone of that 38% of uninsured workers can get a better job with insurance at will. (Remember our CA unemployment rate is now \> 9%.) We’re not talking about people who don’t want to work - they’re on Medicaid anyway (and I think there are fewer of them than you think) I’m talking about working people who are getting screwed. See above. Just because they cannot get group coverage thru an employer doesn’t mean they cannot get insurance at all. > [@](#): > > Neither do Americans. They don’t? Then who is it that is driving this desire to fund health care for those who cannot get group employer coverage? Look at it this way. A family disaster could be because Dad got squished by a car. In California we are required by law to carry car insurance (or prove we are rich) or we don’t drive. Noone steps forward and hands those who cannot afford car insurance money to go get a policy, noone petitions for the government to socialize car insurance. Why the difference with health insurance? You aren’t worried about the individuals, you are worried about the “families”, which means the children. Fine, make a law that you cannot have children unless you have health insurance. Problem solved. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/182 "2009-01-30T01:37:17Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > You don’t believe that group medical insurance doesn’t pay if they can get away with it? Really? You can’t be serious. Assume I couldn’t spend ten seconds on google and find you 50,000 anecdotes. They are a for profit business. Every dollar spent on care is a dollar they lose in profit. Of course they minimize payments. Don’t you understand how the free market works? I didn’t say they didn’t try these things, I said it was illegal for them to refuse to cover something that is in the policy. As for you 50,000 anecdotes, I imagine that one of the things that insurance companies count on is that the masses are asses. > [@](#): > > If you’ve been working for 25 years, you’re probably in your mid 40s. In all that time you’ve never learned that the word is _jibe_. Isn’t it possible that you also might have missed a lot when it comes to understanding how health care insurance works? I’m 51 and oh, yeah, those two things really go together… :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/183 "2009-01-30T01:51:47Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > And neither covers everyone. They do cover the indigent, which is what you said. > [@](#): > > If it was extended over a larger area, why would they come here instead of staying where they are? If every state had UHC, there would be no point in moving to try and get better coverage. Mexicans do not all currently live in California. If we have free health care for all, we are going to be covering even more illiterate, unskilled people whose church tells them to have babies by the bucket load. Fun times. > [@](#): > > Employer supplied insurance is paid for pretax. Individual insurance is paid post tax. That means a self employed person needs to earn enough money to pay for insurance plus the tax on the money earned to pay for insurance. That is why highly competitive jobs offer such great medical benefits. For every dollar they spend on medical insurance, you would have to pay about 1.3 out of pocket if they just gave you more cash and told you to buy your own. That puts the self employed at competitive disadvantage. Ah. OK, so there is another reason not to be self employed, or at least not running a business so small that you cannot qualify for a group policy. > [@](#): > > You throw the word responsible around as if people should know better than to get sick when they can’t afford it. I have good coverage and decent nest egg for my age and income. My wife and I both have good jobs. But if my son developed leukemia right before my wife came down with Lupus, I would probably loose my home, and all my savings even with insurance. And I would not be eligible for Medicare or Medical assistance because I have job and private insurance. I will just be in debt for the rest of my life. And all because I wasn’t responsible enough. You could at least come up with a realistic example. How often do you think folks are bankrupt by medical bills because two people in the family came down with expensive diseases at essentially the same time? And even if this does happen all the time, how does it become my responsibility? Why am I to pay to make sure that you don’t lose your house? If you all keep upping the taxes, I might lose my house and quite frankly, I am more concerned with that than your house. You chose to have a kid, you chose to have a “decent nest egg for” your age and income, whatever that means. But if the chips are down, I’m supposed to pay your medical bills? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/184 "2009-01-30T02:01:44Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > I didn’t say they didn’t try these things, I said it was illegal for them to refuse to cover something that is in the policy. As for you 50,000 anecdotes, I imagine that one of the things that insurance companies count on is that the masses are asses. It must be refreshing to latch onto a little rhyming phrase that you can repeat over and over again, freeing you from the burden of thinking. > [@](#): > > I’m 51 and oh, yeah, those two things really go together… :rolleyes: My point was that intelligent people can have basic misunderstandings. It pays to question your stances and check with experts. Your gut intuition about how the healthcare industry works may not be right. Just because it \*seems \*to you like adding people couldn’t possibly be cheaper doesn’t mean that’s the case. We pay twice as much per capita as the next closest nation and ignore 1/6th of the country and under-insure millions more. The way we do it has tremendous waste and inefficiency. The market doesn’t work for medical insurance. And I ain’t speakin’ no jive. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/185 "2009-01-30T02:10:02Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > And even if this does happen all the time, how does it become my responsibility? Why am I to pay to make sure that you don’t lose your house? If you all keep upping the taxes, I might lose my house and quite frankly, I am more concerned with that than your house. You chose to have a kid, you chose to have a “decent nest egg for” your age and income, whatever that means. But if the chips are down, I’m supposed to pay your medical bills? If your health care would definitely stay the same and would cost you no more than you are paying now in premiums (although the cost might be in taxes instead of going to an insurance company) would you be for UHC if it covered every single person in America, even the poor and masses of asses as you like to call them? Or would the idea of someone getting free medical care upset you so much that you would deny it to spite them, even if you would get the same coverage for the same money? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/186 "2009-01-30T02:22:08Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > On my dime? Because they can’t be bothered to live within their means? Which is what it boils down to - instead of buying a private policy, these people choose to spend their money on something else. Somehow, somewhere down the line, people have gotten the idea that no matter how poor they are, they _deserve_ the “American dream”, right now, whether they have come close to earning it or not. And the handwringers support this idea by continuing to petition the taxpayers to give the “poor” more and more. It’s on your dime already. **strassia** mentioned the hospital jacking up fees for people who can’t pay. As has been cited many, many times, in the US we are paying more taxes for healthcare than Canada as well as our own money. You like paying more? As for buying a private policy, surely you as a former professional know how much they cost. Cheap ones have high deductibles also. You think the kind of people working jobs without insurance can afford these? Your welfare Cadillac stories went out with Ron. If the American Dream means a family being able to take their kid to the doctor and still eat, I’m all for it. > [@](#): > > I have no idea why those 38% don’t have insurance, and your rather biased cite doesn’t say either, just that they can’t get it thru their employers any more. That doesn’t mean they can’t get insurance. My cite does give the number of people without any insurance. The point of it was to give the number of working people who didn’t get it from employers, and contradict your assertion that all they have to do is find a job with insurance, as if jobs without were rare. Does it seem fair to you that those making good money also get employer paid insurance, while those making bad money have to buy it for themselves? > [@](#): > > Thats … scary. Why? I think this kind of thing is pretty standard these days. It is much better to pick and choose, after all. It also keeps younger people from gaming the system, while still letting them pay less than I do. > [@](#): > > Yes it isn’t just the poor that can be irresponsible, but it is them that you all want me to cover with my taxes, not doctors in La Jolla. and the poor can be responsible also - just poor. Or working poor. Why are you assuming that anyone without insurance is irresponsible? Maybe they are unlucky. Maybe they aren’t smart enough to get good jobs, and the concept that full time jobs should pay livable wages is not popular with conservatives these days. Lots of people are in trouble because they lost their jobs due to illness. > [@](#): > > So, then, buying a house wasn’t exactly a good idea was it? You think it responsible to put all of your money into buying a house on the assumption that you will be able to continue to work for the next 15-30 years? Or maybe it might be smarter to wait until you have savings/investments/whatever that you could fall back on to pay the mortgage? How much could the mortgage on a $330K house be that they got so far behind so fast that they face foreclosure? Who, besides the rich, have savings that can pay a mortgage without working? Who doesn’t buy a house under the assumption that you’re going to be working? Plenty of people here didn’t buy, because for the past 8 years house prices rose faster than any savings, and they got further and further behind. Not to mention that in most cases houses get bought with baseline money and get paid off with inflated money after career advancement, and so are a good deal. > [@](#): > > Look at it this way. A family disaster could be because Dad got squished by a car. In California we are required by law to carry car insurance (or prove we are rich) or we don’t drive. Noone steps forward and hands those who cannot afford car insurance money to go get a policy, noone petitions for the government to socialize car insurance. Why the difference with health insurance? You aren’t worried about the individuals, you are worried about the “families”, which means the children. Fine, make a law that you cannot have children unless you have health insurance. Problem solved. And if you have a kid when you have insurance, and then lose it, do we throw the kid down a well? Plenty of people drive without car insurance, I ran into one 10 years ago. 🙂 The difference is that it is cheaper, it is only needed for people who can afford a car, and is somewhat voluntary, unlike getting sick. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/187 "2009-01-30T04:05:34Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Why do you think that? The UHC group policy would have to cover hundreds of thousands of people who would not be able to pay a premium, so that cost would have to be made up some how… > > Right now we pay about $225 a month for my husband and myself, and that is the most we have ever paid due to him working for a small start up. If we were to add all of the un- and under-employed people to our group policy, do you think the insurance company could afford to cover us all for $225 a month? If the insurance company suddenly inherited the advantages of 1) a very large insurance pool (entire population of USA) and 2) the progressive tax income of the country which includes enough wealthy people adding extra money to balance out the less taxes from the poor… then sure it could afford it. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/188 "2009-01-30T04:33:44Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > It must be refreshing to latch onto a little rhyming phrase that you can repeat over and over again, freeing you from the burden of thinking. Apparently it is freeing you from the burden of thinking so I’ll write out the whole thing. A big number, maybe a majority, of those 50,000 folks didn’t get whatever benefit they were supposed to get because they didn’t have enough brains to figure out their coverage. Insurance companies are not going to chase these folks around trying to give them money. > [@](#): > > My point was that intelligent people can have basic misunderstandings. It pays to question your stances and check with experts. Your gut intuition about how the healthcare industry works may not be right. Just because it \*seems \*to you like adding people couldn’t possibly be cheaper doesn’t mean that’s the case. We pay twice as much per capita as the next closest nation and ignore 1/6th of the country and under-insure millions more. The way we do it has tremendous waste and inefficiency. The market doesn’t work for medical insurance. OK, then, prove to me that it would cost me less to be paying into an insurance policy where hundred of thousands of the participants are not paying any premiums. Except, you can’t because so far no expert has come forward with a plan that will do that, otherwise we would have UHC already. _Your_ gut intuition that this is a really great thing that won’t add to my tax burden may not be right either, ya know? And I ain’t speakin’ no jive. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/189 "2009-01-30T04:37:51Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > _Your_ gut intuition that this is a really great thing that won’t add to my tax burden may not be right either, ya know? So, that every other developed nation provides better care for less cost, without denying anyone treatment, means nothing to you? ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/190 "2009-01-30T04:44:23Z")
No, the United States of America is a unique snowflake for which no comparison to any other nation on Earth may be brooked! ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/191 "2009-01-30T05:00:55Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > If your health care would definitely stay the same and would cost you no more than you are paying now in premiums (although the cost might be in taxes instead of going to an insurance company) would you be for UHC if it covered every single person in America, even the poor and masses of asses as you like to call them? I’ve already said that if such a thing were possible, it would be fine with me. My position is that there is no way that the US government would be able to pull that off - either it would cost more or the quality of care would drop. > [@](#): > > Or would the idea of someone getting free medical care upset you so much that you would deny it to spite them, even if you would get the same coverage for the same money? I see. My desire to try to hold on to what little we have left translates into this to you? Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/192 "2009-01-30T05:54:51Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It’s on your dime already. **strassia** mentioned the hospital jacking up fees for people who can’t pay. As has been cited many, many times, in the US we are paying more taxes for healthcare than Canada as well as our own money. You like paying more? Again, it cannot be proven that UHC would be cheaper for me. Do you really think that hospitals would drop their prices? As for us paying more than Canada, I imagine we end up paying more for quite a few things than they do. Shall we socialize all of those too? > [@](#): > > As for buying a private policy, surely you as a former professional know how much they cost. Cheap ones have high deductibles also. You think the kind of people working jobs without insurance can afford these? Your welfare Cadillac stories went out with Ron. If the American Dream means a family being able to take their kid to the doctor and still eat, I’m all for it. Oh, so now health care is only important if someone else pays for it? Anyone who has to choose between being able to take a kid to the doctor or feed it shouldn’t have had the kid in the first place. Yeah, I know, horrible idea but this idea that anyone and everyone should have as many kids as they want whether or not they can afford them is reason 1,243,903,703 that taxes keep going up and up. I went to _one_ insurance company site and found that I can get a policy for just under $400 a month for my husband and myself. It has a high deductible but if something serious happened, we would be covered. Don’t have $400 a month to spend on insurance? What is this person doing with a car, a kid? > [@](#): > > My cite does give the number of people without any insurance. The point of it was to give the number of working people who didn’t get it from employers, and contradict your assertion that all they have to do is find a job with insurance, as if jobs without were rare. Does it seem fair to you that those making good money also get employer paid insurance, while those making bad money have to buy it for themselves? Life is not fair. If a person doesn’t work in a field that has jobs with employer provided insurance then they will have to buy it themselves. Just like those jobs that don’t provide a company car, the employees have to buy their own. Or the jobs that won’t make you rich means you won’t be able to buy the things that rockstars do. > [@](#): > > Why? I think this kind of thing is pretty standard these days. It is much better to pick and choose, after all. It also keeps younger people from gaming the system, while still letting them pay less than I do. Must be a non-west coast thing - I’ve never heard of a group coverage that you _have_ to pay for. > [@](#): > > and the poor can be responsible also - just poor. Or working poor. Why are you assuming that anyone without insurance is irresponsible? I am not assuming that at all, it’s just a conclusion you leap to because I’m not falling all over myself to throw what’s left of my money away. I have said that there will be times a responsible person needs help, but if you start digging into these stories you’ll find many many irresponsible ones. The ones that buy the new cars, who [have herds of kids they can’t afford](http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Mom-of-Octuplets-Lives-with-Parents-Has-6-Other-Kids.html), drop out of school to start working, blow their money on drugs and on and on thru the stupid things that people do. > [@](#): > > Who, besides the rich, have savings that can pay a mortgage without working? Who doesn’t buy a house under the assumption that you’re going to be working? Plenty of people here didn’t buy, because for the past 8 years house prices rose faster than any savings, and they got further and further behind. Not to mention that in most cases houses get bought with baseline money and get paid off with inflated money after career advancement, and so are a good deal. You don’t need to be rich to plan ahead and have savings! Is that what is wrong with this country? No one saves? My husband and I were both unemployed from 3/1/08 to 11/1/08 and we weren’t even late on any of the mortgage payments. Now granted our mortgage is only $1800/mo but that is because the husband has owned this house since 1984 and we have only taken equity out of it once, to do renovations. This meant that with the lower than average payment I didn’t have to use all of our money in the savings account and didn’t touch any of the non-liquid stuff at all. We also don’t have credit card debt and both of our vehicles are paid for. We just don’t do the “buy now pay later” thing, because there is always a chance that we wouldn’t be able to pay later! As for buying a house under the assumption you’re going to be working, that isn’t what I said. > [@](#): > > And if you have a kid when you have insurance, and then lose it, do we throw the kid down a well? Don’t really care what you do with your kid, it is your responsibility not mine. If you have a kid, you jolly well shouldn’t be expecting someone else to take care of it (and you) should something happen, such as losing a job that provides cheaper insurance. > [@](#): > > Plenty of people drive without car insurance, I ran into one 10 years ago. 🙂 The difference is that it is cheaper, it is only needed for people who can afford a car, and is somewhat voluntary, unlike getting sick. People do drive without insurance but it is still illegal which indicates that that state thinks that it is very important that drivers carry insurance. Its _generally_ cheaper to get auto insurance because drivers are generally less of a risk than people who get medical insurance. Having children is totally voluntary. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/193 "2009-01-30T05:58:10Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > If the insurance company suddenly inherited the advantages of 1) a very large insurance pool (entire population of USA) and 2) the progressive tax income of the country which includes enough wealthy people adding extra money to balance out the less taxes from the poor… then sure it could afford it. Hell, if the rich were taxed at the rate the middle class is we could afford all kinds of things! However, why is it the responsibility of the rich to take care of the rest of the world? ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/194 "2009-01-30T06:26:38Z")
> [@Jayn\_Newell](#): > > So, that every other developed nation provides better care for less cost, without denying anyone treatment, means nothing to you? Once again, no. For one thing it really hasn’t been proven that if you dropped Germany or Canada into the US and made them pay our prices for things, that it would actually be cheaper. For another, noone has really said how those UHCs get paid for - is it just the premiums or are other taxes going to it? They do pay more taxes over there. And, those other developed nations installed their UHCs years, even decades ago. With all of the private and government insurance plans we have running around here now, it is highly unlikely that a UHC could be installed anything close to cheaply. And, I just flat don’t trust the US government. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/195 "2009-01-30T06:45:08Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Hell, if the rich were taxed at the rate the middle class is we could afford all kinds of things! However, why is it the responsibility of the rich to take care of the rest of the world? Because life is not fair.. The well to do can try to make all the rest forget that the rich also have to suffer life, but it is a tale that us not working as well nowadays. Taxation is set that way because the rich use a bigger chuck of the infrastructure of America to continue being rich. However, I see health care as part of the infrastructure and ignoring now that America is losing jobs nowadays because of the current health care costs is being reckless. ---
**Author:** ![Ocean\_Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8797f3/32.png) [@Ocean\_Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ocean_Annie)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/196 "2009-01-30T09:43:05Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Hell, if the rich were taxed at the rate the middle class is we could afford all kinds of things! However, why is it the responsibility of the rich to take care of the rest of the world? The U.S. isn’t an aristocracy, so a person doesn’t gain wealth without social opportunity. The richest Americans are direct beneficiaries of an advanced civilized society that provided well funded public education, exceptional universities, courts, contract laws, research, public libraries, and highly developed markets. Someone like Bill Gates would not have enjoyed the same opportunity or great wealth in a developing country. Therefore, people who benefit the most from society have a greater duty to maintain that society by paying taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Ninas\_grandpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@Ninas\_grandpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ninas_grandpa)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/197 "2009-01-30T14:47:32Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Hell, if the rich were taxed at the rate the middle class is we could afford all kinds of things! However, why is it the responsibility of the rich to take care of the rest of the world? Because they can. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/198 "2009-01-30T17:46:31Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > You can’t opt out of the school system if you have kids? What about all those people homeschooling? > > (Primary _and_ secondary education is funded by the state from your tax dollars, btw. Universities are tertiary education). I’m aware of that, and usually I refer to university as “post-secondary.” If you scroll up some you’ll even see I made specific mention of this earlier in the thread. The reason I said you can’t opt your children out of primary education is because in most states around High School age your kids **can** stop going to school and avoid running afoul of truancy laws. As for home schooling, you’re still being required to educate your child. Until a certain age you have to give your child some form of education (whether it be home schooling or public schools or private schools) and you don’t have the option of outright not educating them. Furthermore, whether you home school your child or not, your property taxes are still feeding the public school system. There is generally no opt out of payment for public schools and there’s no opting out of providing the “educational service” to your children until at least around age 16 or so. > [@](#): > > Pretty easy to ‘lose everything’ if (for example) you’re a two-parent two-kid family whose entire savings go on healthcare for the ill parent, then some more on a loan tied to the home because that’s the only way you can pay for his/her treatment, and then the main breadwinner dies (or the parent who isn’t the main breadwinner dies, and the other parent suddenly has huge childcare costs). All at a time when the bereaved are even less likely to be able to cope emotionally with such financial upheaval than they would have otherwise. You could have just decided not to spend all your savings on the sick person. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/199 "2009-01-30T19:14:48Z")
> [@Ocean\_Annie](#): > > The U.S. isn’t an aristocracy, so a person doesn’t gain wealth without social opportunity. > The richest Americans are direct beneficiaries of an advanced civilized society that provided well funded public education, exceptional universities, courts, contract laws, research, public libraries, and highly developed markets. Someone like Bill Gates would not have enjoyed the same opportunity or great wealth in a developing country. Therefore, people who benefit the most from society have a greater duty to maintain that society by paying taxes. Uh, Paris Hilton? Or any of the others that just inherited their pile? Simply because a rich person _might_ have gone to public schools or used a public library doesn’t mean they are required to be responsible for every other person that comes after them, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we should keep raising taxes until there are no poor people left, because that is simply impossible. In the real world, I’m all for trying to get the rich to pay a bit more in taxes in order to lighten the burden on the middle class. In fantasy, I’d rather that the government learn to use what they already have in a much better, more efficient way. Socially, I’m tired of people demanding that those who have should hand it all to those who don’t. Sometimes I think the goal is to make everyone equally poor! ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032/200 "2009-01-30T19:28:00Z")
> [@flex727](#): > > This may be true, but since the US Federal Government taxes income rather than wealth, I’m not sure how it is relevant. Liquid assets are often invested, & private wealth can therefore grow into private income. Simply abolishing the capital gains tax & treating capital gains as regular income would bring in a lot of money from the venture capitalist subclass, without having to work out a wealth tax, _per se._ And while we’re advocating policy changes, we certainly could have a small wealth tax for say, ‘net worth \> 1000 x mean net worth.’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/devils-advocate-saving-america-from-socialized-medicine/483032.md?page=11)