Because where I come from, if I was bitten by a tick I could book my primary doctor's appointment online, get the blood test done the same day at a walk in clinic without an appointment, and then phone the doctor's surgery two days later to get my test results...without paying anything.
I almost thought that once, but it's really easy to run through the facts:
1. Since the primary purchasers of health insurance are companies, the insurance companies grossly tilt their plans in the direction of companies. Individual plans are lackluster. The individual plans where I live don't even cover mental health services. Not even one.
2. Since companies are fallible, we cannot depend on them to honestly offer insurance to every worker who deserves it. For example, in Massachusetts, there is a mandate for companies with full time employees to provide a health insurance plan: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/29/companies-cut-hours-of... naturally, companies schedule for .1 less hours and leave you in the dust.
It seems that this is a total mess. Companies cannot be put in the crossfire of the health insurance debate with these unimplementable laws.
The only reasonable solution is to pay for it with the federal income tax. Competition and free markets are good, but not in this space. Would you like to find out the free market price for an ambulance after you were involuntarily hit by a bus and woke up in an ICU?
We live in a strange land of "freedom"
Pay out of property tax. Follow the money and keep the money loop as small as possible to maximize return on investment and minimize accounting losses.
99% of your lifetime medical expenses are going to be at the hospital closest to your home, most likely. Makes closing the loop simple and obvious.
If for political reasons you have to go county sales tax to pay for the county hospital, that works too.
Much like the most effective way to fund a local school system seems to be local prop tax rather than the feds or the UN or something.
"Companies cannot be put in the crossfire of ... with these unimplementable laws."
Its never slowed down any other regulation for any other reason in the past, ever, so may as well not start slowing down with health care.
If that happens my new home is going to have to figure out their property tax situation, though (NH property tax is one of the highest)
It's an empty word at this point. Freedom from what?
directly.
Whether it's better/cheaper to pay directly or indirectly is a separate issue worthy of its own debate, but either way TNSTAAFL.
Unfortunately, because the Conservative party have frozen NHS funding, you'd have trouble getting that doctor's appointment, and the walk-in clinic would potentially bugger up your blood test, forget to put your NHS number on the sample, then call your doctor who would contact you a week later to tell you to go in again and have it re-done.
There's no good reason why we shouldn't be spending more to make sure that the service works properly, just right-wing ideology.