Doctors and nurses don't work for free. Neither do bakers.
So what's the argument that suggests poor people need to be given healthcare, but not bread?
I suggest to just give them money, and then they can buy the bread and healthcare they need.
(And that's a general principle.
However giving goods and services directly does make sense for non-excludable public goods. Eg don't give poor people money to procure national defense. Just provide national defense directly with tax payer money.)
> So what's the argument that suggests poor people need to be given healthcare, but not bread?
You (deliberately?) misread the parent's comments. It was not very long, and it centered on the word "both".
> I suggest to just give them money, and then they can buy the bread and healthcare they need.
Elsewhere you wrote that "unforeseeable, big events" should still be covered by insurance, but I don't think you understand that if people don't have enough money, even getting regular checkups and medication can be pretty "big" from the affected person's perspective. If two people are scraping by on a universal basic income that is enough for basic shelter and food, and one of those people regularly needs checkups or medication for some chronic condition, then you are screwing over one of those people.
This isn't about the freedom to choose not to be chronically ill, because there is no such freedom. Neither is it about the freedom to choose not to be treated for chronic medical conditions. There is no such freedom, the word for that "choice" is "torture".
> You (deliberately?) misread the parent's comments. It was not very long, and it centered on the word "both".
To be more clear: if society spends X dollars per year per poor person on direct financial transfers, and Y dollars per year per poor person on in-kind services, I am suggesting to move to a system of giving the poor person (X+Y) dollars in direct financial transfers.
Is that better?
About the latter part of your comment:
Yes, that is a real problem. There are (at least) two reasonable approaches that leave insurance as insurance:
First, you can just give the chronically ill or disabled person more welfare money.
Or, second, if you are a purist for equality: enter a very long running insurance contract, before you develop a chronic condition. Because then there's still uncertainty, and uncertain conditions are insurable. In the strictest form, your parents would make the arrangements before conceiving you.
BUT: I do gladly concede that for serious enough conditions just handing out medical services might be a reasonable choice. I don't know. But that doesn't say much about routine check-ups for healthy people.
Where I live (Austria), everybody (modulo a few exceptions and quirks that shouldn't exist) has state-mandated health insurance. If we go to the doctor, of course the doctor gets paid, but not directly out of our pockets. The system is simple, and it works. I don't understand why you discount this possibility. It's the best model.
> enter a very long running insurance contract, before you develop a chronic condition. Because then there's still uncertainty, and uncertain conditions are insurable. In the strictest form, your parents would make the arrangements before conceiving you.
I guess this is a complicated way of saying the same thing as I did, except that "your parents" are "the law"?
> I guess this is a complicated way of saying the same thing as I did, except that "your parents" are "the law"?
Your parents are your parents. They have skin in the game.
People with heritable diseases would presumably pay more for that kind of pre-insurance. (That's pretty similar to how the church in Cyprus apparently asks couples to get tested for Thalassemia genes before marrying them: if both parents have a single copy of the recessive allele, the children run the risk of sickle cell anemia.)
> Where I live (Austria), everybody (modulo a few exceptions and quirks that shouldn't exist) has state-mandated health insurance. If we go to the doctor, of course the doctor gets paid, but not directly out of our pockets. The system is simple, and it works. I don't understand why you discount this possibility. It's the best model.
I grew up in Germany with a similar model. The various European models look good compared to the American mess we hear so much about. The Singaporean system is superior, even if not perfect.
To quote myself: if society spends X dollars per year per poor person on direct financial transfers, and Y dollars per year per poor person on in-kind services, I am suggesting to move to a system of giving the poor person (X+Y) dollars in direct financial transfers.
Yes, political implementation is a different topic.
However, this ain't an all or nothing game:
You can move some in-kind services to money payment without moving all. Eg it should be possible for politicians to refrain from handing out annual eye exams.
There's no good reason for healthcare that everybody needs to be locked behind a prohibitive money gate.