# Humor me. Why is State funded Education Universal in the US but State funded Health Care is not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 21, 2013, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912 "2013-05-21T10:02:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/21 "2013-05-21T15:24:11Z")
The actual answer to the OPs question has less to do with why we don’t have universal healthcare than why we do have public education. The latter goes way back to colonial times when the goal was to make sure that all puritan children could read the bible. From there it was just a matter of morphing and expanding it to the state it is today. At the start of healthcare in the US, your survival from disease wasn’t that much better with or without a doctor, so a doctors visit was nice to have but not something that everyone needed. Now healthcare has improved to the point that it is unethical to leave people with serious medial conditions untreated. Universal health care is the answer but its hard to make the jump away from the way things have always been done. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/22 "2013-05-21T15:29:17Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > The actual answer to the OPs question has less to do with why we don’t have universal healthcare than why we do have public education. The latter goes way back to colonial times when the goal was to make sure that all puritan children could read the bible. From there it was just a matter of morphing and expanding it to the state it is today. That’s why there were public schools in Massachusetts in the 17th century. It has nothing to do with why there are public schools in every state today. Universal public education wasn’t even discussed in the US until about 1800. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/23 "2013-05-21T15:30:51Z")
> [@XT](#): > > We didn’t build our system following some sort of over all plan…it evolved into what it is, and it’s worked well enough for decades that folks are confortable with it the way it is. This is also how healthcare developed in Europe and the rest of the world too, until it became apparent that it could fairly readily be reorganized to provide something much better and much more efficient. There were nasty political battles about it too (certainly in the UK, which was the pioneer) as entrenched economic interests who were making money off the inefficiencies of the old, privatized system, fought against reform, just as they do now (notably by putting out the sort of obfuscatory disinformation that you are repeating). The difference is not in the pre-existing health care system (although, by now, the US system has been allowed to get far worse, far more inefficient and corrupt, than European systems were at the time of reform), the difference is in the extreme spinelessness and corruption of government in the USA in the face of wealthy and entrenched corporate power. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/24 "2013-05-21T15:44:49Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I see what your problem is. $3,000 is crazy talk. The Medicare reimbursement rate for an MRI angiogram of the neck, with and without contrast - essentially, the most expensive procedure you can perform with an MRI - is $796.48. The rate for an MRI of the lumbar spine without contrast (which I’d guess is the most common one) is $431.94. > > If you look at the pre-fee schedule rates for MRIs done in hospitals, you’ll occasionally see wacky prices like $2,500, but (1) hospitals charge more for nearly everything, because they have to, and (2), nobody actually pays those prices. Insurance will pay about $800 (give or take $200 depending on the local usual and customary fees), and uninsured people will pay about $1000. This is my favorite recent quote on pricing (bolded line is my callout): > **[Cedars-Sinai stands out for steep pricing](https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cedars-hospital-prices-20130517-story.html)** > > It's the only hospital near the top in every category in a Medicare report. But few patients pay the full amount. > [@](#): > > Thomas Priselac, Cedars-Sinai’s chief executive, said the average charges released by Medicare are irrelevant because they have little or no bearing on what the hospital actually gets paid by the government, insurers or patients. Priselac said hospitals aren’t solely responsible for a broken healthcare system that has been decades in the making. > > “Everyone is always looking for someone to blame. That is neither accurate nor productive,” Priselac said in an interview this week. “ **These billed charges are neither meaningful, accurate nor reliable.** Worse than that, I think it contributes enormously to confusion about what patients pay as well as what hospitals are ultimately paid.” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/25 "2013-05-21T16:00:55Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Why is State funded Education Universal in the US but State funded Health Care is not? We’re just doing it to piss off the Euros. ---
**Author:** ![6079smithW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/db5fbb/32.png) [@6079smithW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6079smithW)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/26 "2013-05-21T16:58:32Z")
After the American Civil War, the State governments in the South were controlled by progressives, and many of their constituents were former slaves. So, free education was a very big deal. The ability to read and write was well understood as an important thing by folks who had recently been slaves. So, they put free public education in their state constitutions. I think all of the Southern states did it at the time. Thus, a free, state-funded, public education became a thing. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/27 "2013-05-21T17:03:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > … it’s worked well enough for decades that folks are confortable with it the way it is. By now, costs of employer-provided health insurance are often $10,000 per employee-year, or even [$15,000 or more](http://www.commonwealthfund.org/News/News-Releases/2012/Dec/Employer-Health-Insurance-Premiums.aspx). Most of this cost is usually “invisible” to the employee. Can you imagine the shrieks and consternation _in America_ if these costs were broken out in the paycheck-stub and called a “tax”? In another thread, self-identified right-wingers identified the problem with UHC as “free-loaders”: > [@Pros and cons to universal health care](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-to-universal-health-care/634194/11): > > I consider myself right wing, and it’s not my thinking. Morality really has nothing to do with it. If you create a system of benefits, whether it’s health care or anything else, where there are free riders, there is emphasis on the periphery of where you define who is eligible for free stuff to just say to hell with it all and join the free riders. > > Free Riders also don’t recognize or constraint themselves with the amount of consumption they use in any system. If my car repairs are completely free to me, I’m taking it in for body work when I notice a minor scratch by my door handle. If I’m paying out of pocket, I let it go. > > Free Riders are a basic economic problem in any system. Morality has nothing to do with it. That private-insured people have exactly the same propensity (or lack of propensity) to “freeload” as public-insured people do, seems to be beyond the grasp of right-wingers. Or, more likely, it really is a matter of morality: People without money don’t deserve the things money can buy. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/28 "2013-05-21T17:17:00Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You mean the current system does. With private insurance only, the poor have less access than the middle class, who have less access than the rich. Universal access \*reduces \*that problem, it doesn’t create it. the poor have medicaid which is vastly superior to universal health care in other countries for serious health issues. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/29 "2013-05-21T17:57:22Z")
Education is one of those things that the benefits are obvious for- people make more money, they can vote more effectively, public information can be distributed more effectively, etc… No picture-ballots in our elections, thank you. Universal health care isn’t so easy to see. The class divides in the country mean that something that affects the poor doesn’t necessarily affect other classes very much. I mean, I’ve ALWAYS had employer-subsidized health insurance. The idea of not being able to afford a doctor visit is utterly foreign to me, as I suspect it is to the vast majority of middle class people. I may pay somewhat more or less in co-pays, premiums and deductibles depending on where I work, and what the current plan is, but ultimately, it’s not a crushing cost. When a lot of middle-class people think universal health care, they basically see ANOTHER tax being added to their current tax burden to (essentially) pay for all the people in the ghetto, illegal aliens and vagrants. When it’s thought of that way, it’s hard to see what the necessity of it is, especially since they and theirs are covered, and it’s going to cost them more. If a political party is serious about universal health care, they need to prove that the abolition of employer-subsidized health care premiums and the imposition of whatever tax is necessary to pay for it doesn’t increase the middle and upper classes’ tax burdens. Otherwise, what’s in it for them? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/30 "2013-05-21T18:06:33Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > In another thread, self-identified right-wingers identified the problem with UHC as “free-loaders”: To be fair, the issue with “freeloaders” was for the most part discussing those that did not want to pay for insurance until they got sick under the zero-reject of Obamacare. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/31 "2013-05-21T18:36:52Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > the poor have medicaid which is vastly superior to universal health care in other countries for serious health issues. What other countries, besides Fantasyland? This is by far the dumbest thing you’ve ever posted (and no, I’m not joking.) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/32 "2013-05-21T18:44:14Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > To be fair, the issue with “freeloaders” was for the most part discussing those that did not want to pay for insurance until they got sick under the zero-reject of Obamacare. The quote I excerpted was from a thread about “Universal Health Care, pros and cons”, _not_ about Obamacare. It is very clear that some (perhaps not most) right-wingers have a sense of morality that implies people should not get care they don’t pay for. In fact, credible economists have calculated that the U.S. spends as much money for a bureaucracy to _deny_ care, as would be needed to provide a good level of care for the uninsured. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/33 "2013-05-21T19:09:02Z")
The United States has an entrenched system that makes a lot of money off of healthcare. It’s a well-funded special interest that wants to maintain the status quo that favors it. The majority of people would benefit from changes in the health care system but that majority is diffuse and unfocused. ---
**Author:** ![EverwonderWhy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EverwonderWhy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EverwonderWhy)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/34 "2013-05-21T19:09:58Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > the poor have medicaid which is vastly superior to universal health care in other countries for serious health issues. Huh? Medicaid is government provided health insurance for the poor, it is not healthcare. Medicaid doesn’t even cover all the poor, basically just pregnant women and dependent children. This might change in 2014 if states opt in for the Medicaid expansion, which would cover any US citizen (not just women and children) who earn below ~133% of FPL. Have you ever compared US quality of care to other nations with UHC? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/35 "2013-05-21T20:36:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Partly because America used to be much more left wing. And partly because it’s unlikely that we could have even functioned as a major industrialized nation without state funded education, while not funding health care just results in “expendable” people dying and their money being transferred to the richer echelons of society in the process. What a horribly inaccurate answer. The American healthcare system worked quite well until LBJ turned it into a vote-buying scheme and inflicted Medicare on us. It’s been in the toilet ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/36 "2013-05-21T20:40:55Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > What a horribly inaccurate answer. The American healthcare system worked quite well… For who?? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/37 "2013-05-21T20:57:22Z")
It’s not really the healthcare business, it’s the health insurance business. Through lack of regulation and competition they impose a de facto tax on those who don’t want to be left to an underfunded public healthcare system, which is then funded with an actual tax through the government. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/38 "2013-05-21T22:27:36Z")
Because overtons window has moved universal education into the ranks of policy, while UHC is still considered a mix of acceptable and radical. Also, just to add to the strangeness of how the overton window affects debate, a lot of those who are most anti-UHC are either one or will soon be on medicare which is a single payer government program funded by taxes. The majority of them will not give up their UHC. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/39 "2013-05-21T22:35:14Z")
> [@XT](#): > > You have to look at it in the context of how our private health care system grew up and why it is the way it is. Doesn’t seem so hard to me to understand when you look at how and why it is what it is…and why it’s different than what the Europeaans have. > > We didn’t build our system following some sort of over all plan…it evolved into what it is, and it’s worked well enough for decades that folks are confortable with it the way it is. We didn’t start out to build a socialized school system and then screw the poor with a privatized health care system, despite what you and Der seem to think. Again, it evolved this way, and it’s a system that’s been in place more than half a century now…and has worked reasonably well for the majority of people in this country. It has short comings and flaws, obviously, but so do most health care sysmes to one degree or another. It’s only fairly recently that the system has started to break down…which is why people are finally starting to demand changes and agitate for reform. Our system has started breaking down because as of the 21st century, even if you do everything ‘right’ health care is still probably a luxury. If you go to school, get a good job, pay your bills on time, take care of yourself, etc. you can still lose everything if you get sick or you may have junk insurance that only covers catastrophic care. I don’t think our system really worked in any great way for huge swaths of people. Medicaid has a provider shortage, medicare may have one too if cuts are made, 1/6 of people are uninsured, another 1/6 or more are underinsured. Before medicare and medicaid, the poor and elderly were screwed. Maybe for a period in the 80s our system was ok, but that is about it and before the prices exploded. When it was just the poor people really didn’t give a shit but now that our health care system is leaving the middle class behind, it is starting to become a serious issue. It is like school violence and youth violence, as long as it was on the fringes of society nobody really cared much (they wanted more law enforcement, but that was to keep the violence out of the better neighborhoods). Once the good neighborhoods had violence (columbine, etc) then it became a nationwide crisis. Realpolitik at its best. My question is what happens in the US when health care becomes even more unobtainable for the middle class? Obamacare is just a bandaid, it mandates people buy into an overpriced, poorly run system rather than reforming the system. The true reforms this country needs to get health care costs under control would go against the financial interests of several businesses worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Eventually there will have to be an actual battle between the bottom 85% of the country and the business interests on the subject of health care. I predict major reforms will happen on the state level, and we may get nationwide major reforms in the late 2020s. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912/40 "2013-05-22T00:53:46Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > From a European perspective, the long battle to provide reasonable health care to the poor and middle America seems strange. > > Why are schools State funded but Hospitals and Health Care are not? The influence of Scots & Border Scots immigrants on the earlier periods of US History. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humor-me-why-is-state-funded-education-universal-in-the-us-but-state-funded-health-care-is-not/658912.md?page=3)