"free" is relative. For instance we have a tax on chronically ill people here called "eigenrisico" (literally your own risk) which is not a tax but is meant for people to not seek help unless it is absolutely necessary and then pay for the cost. Some things are excluded but as soon as you need more than basic help or any medicine it comes into play. So it's a tax on being ill in all but name since it resets every year.
So "free" comes in many forms, not all single player.
I'd be wary of calling it a tax. As you pointed out it's an amount large enough to warr off spurious medical needs and small enough that if you're really injured or suffering, it can be extremely helpful and is a miniscule part of your medical fees.
What's broken is the huisarts system where any efforts to get specialized care when you're in pain must pass through your GP. This often leads to a longer waiting period that can be excruciatingly painful for some.
Does eigenrisico apply to each event separately or is there an annual limit?
We have a similar idea here in Norway. I pay about 20 euro to visit my GP and I pay for drugs. An MRI costs me about 25 euro. But there is a limit of about 200 euro per year. Anything I pay over that will be refunded in the tax settlement for the year and if I have a chronic need for drugs I will be given a frikort to exempt me from paying for them at the pharmacy.
In NL eigenrisico works like you describe (well, actually, it doesn't: after the eigenrisico you don't pay for stuff anymore, the insurance company covers the cost directly and you are not even billed), but is 350 euro, annually
They have that in the US as well. It's called a copay I believe and it depends on insurance but is also do prevent people from going to seek help if it's minor.
Though with all other subsidies etc. it's effectively not that different from an additional income tax. To the point where I wonder why they don't just make it part of the income tax.
Certain communities such as the Amish have in the past and will in future go to DC and protest. They see it as an attack on their way of life which it is. It is just that there way of life is build on perpetuating the way of life of the Amish.
Well yes I was talking about the Netherlands where you have a mandatory insurance, guaranteed to be the same amongst all insurers and for which the cost is subsidized for people with low or no income.
because sure, we all know that health care and drugs cost nothing to make. i want to have free food too and free houses too, please add that to the list.
Don't see a single country [0] where that's true, and that's for average wages, which tends to be higher than the median wage. Mind you, the first infographic includes employer taxes as well, which should be left out of the discussion.
I live in Portugal and 40 to 50% on the middle-class is actually low-balling it by ignoring things like VAT, social security, the employers side of income tax and a bunch of other taxes.
This isn't a matter of free healthcare; it's a matter of getting rid of bullshit patents and licensing problems that allow companies to pull off their absurd prices in the first place.
Insulin should be free for everyone to produce and to sell, then prices would go down on their own.
Of course, this doesn't mean the USA shouldn't implement "free" healthcare like we have in europe; just that that's not what the insulin problem comes down to.
Insulin has no patents anymore though. But making insulin reliably at the right quality is no easy feat. Thats why you dont have millions of insulin suppliers worldwide.
