# Why is socially provided universal healthcare 'better'?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-socially-provided-universal-healthcare-better/612181>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 8, 2012, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-socially-provided-universal-healthcare-better/612181 "2012-02-08T12:09:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 14

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**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-socially-provided-universal-healthcare-better/612181/261 "2012-03-02T02:43:26Z")

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> [@bldysabba](#):
>
> I’m trying to establish why the cost of healthcare, which primarily benefits the individual who receives it, should be borne by society.

No man is an island.

Why should a wall street banker earning millions get better health care than the maid who cleans his house?

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**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-socially-provided-universal-healthcare-better/612181/262 "2012-03-03T10:57:56Z")

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> [@bldysabba](#):
>
> I’d appreciate a cite, or even an analysis, showing that it is a net boost to productivity if every sick person is provided socialised healthcare.

I’d look at Kenneth Arrows work on economic dynamics in a health care market for a starting point. _“Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care”_ specifically. It is considered some of the founding work in the discipline of Health Care Economics. If you actually need a reasoning for why healthier individuals are better for a society you’ll probably need to go into sociology though.

Or see Margaret Thatcher. _“There’s no such thing as society”_ A society is the sum total of the individuals composing it, and it should be intuitivly obvious that spending more resources than neccessary for poorer health results for the components is bad for productivity.

Or for a practical example, [Inc.coms article on startups in Norway](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-say-ja-to-socialism.html) looks at how the countries with the greatest number of business startups per person are the countries with the strongest welfare net. The cost of failiure being reduced below catastrophic frees up a lot of innovation.

> [@bldysabba](#):
>
> If I _had_ to counter it, with my own gut feeling, I’d say that socialising those parts of healthcare that are a private good(by the economic definition) inflates the prices that the market can bear. By extending the costs of healthcare even to people that do not demand it, it introduces a distortion that reduces the need to serve the market as it exists and does greater damage than good in the long run.

That is an interesting theory, but when we look at reality, the opposite seems to happen. Socialized health care leads to lower prices across the board. Exactly why this is may be subject to debate, but it seems that the incentives of scale dominates.

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**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2014, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-socially-provided-universal-healthcare-better/612181/264 "2014-09-27T08:15:34Z")

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