With all the debate of late I have heard statements like why shouldn't we have free health care like Canada or England etc. Now these comments come from supposedly educated people who should be able to think for themselves. Do the doctors in these countries work for free? do they get medicine donated by the drug companies ? do they build hospitals for free ? do workers
donate their time to keep these medical facilities operating? The obvious answer is no, somebody has to pay for it so the short answer is there is no such thing as 'free healthcare' anywhere in the world. The next reasonable question should be then where does the money come from? In the case of public health care (AKA socialized medicine) the money comes from the government. So where does the government get the money from? They get it from us, the taxpayers and in the case of England (and other countries as well) the top effective tax rate (if you total them up) is over 50% now I know some of this goes to other government functions but that is double what we currently pay here in the United States which begs the question how good an insurance policy could you have if you were willing to spend 25% of your income on it. But (some of you are saying) I don't make a lot of money so the rich people will pay for my insurance. Now aside from the fact I don't believe anyone should owe you health care no more than they should owe you a car or food or anything else lets just supposed that is fine with me, lets boil that down.
If Walmart (I pick on them because a lot of low income people shop there) has to pay more taxes in the form of payroll and corporate taxes and shipping costs (due to higher tax rates of their employees) do you really think they are going to eat it, no if their operating costs go up 25% then the price of goods in the store goes up 25% Walmart can't, or won't borrow money to cover the difference if they did they would be hopelessly in debt and eventually go bankrupt (also see our government) so there goes your theory of the rich paying for your health care, I call it trickle down poverty.
I will also let you in on a dirty little secret nobody in this country, I repeat NOBODY is without health care, there may be millions who have no insurance but by law everyone who shows up at an emergency room has to be treated. Now I admit the system we had prior to zero-bama was not perfect but in my opinion it was one of the best in the world, why else did people with means travel from all over the world to come here for life saving treatment? So in closing don't insult my good friends in Canada or any other country by telling me, or them, they have free health care, they pay good money for it.
