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What Makes Health Care Unique To Law Enforcement Or The Fire Department?

Geoist

Geoist

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I think if you polled most Americans they would agree that police and fire departments should be funded through taxpayer dollars. At the very least, nobody except the very far-right libertarians and randroids express their desire to privatize them. People agree that it is a smart use of our public dollars to support safe communities. So why doesn't health care fit into that equation? Why is it okay to tax someone who very well may never need a fireman, but not tax someone to help support public health? My theory is that citizens are more open to socialism when it is localized. We have brains programmed to have tribalist leanings. We are more open to our tax dollars going to help fellow community members rather than to help someone thousands of miles away. The FD/PD are largely funded through state/local taxes. Perhaps more conservative-minded citizens would be open to 'universal health care' if it was done by their own states. I really don't know for sure. What are your thoughts?
 
Just one.... What would it cost and how do you pay for it?
 
Geoist said:
I think if you polled most Americans they would agree that police and fire departments should be funded through taxpayer dollars. At the very least, nobody except the very far-right libertarians and randroids express their desire to privatize them. People agree that it is a smart use of our public dollars to support safe communities. So why doesn't health care fit into that equation? Why is it okay to tax someone who very well may never need a fireman, but not tax someone to help support public health? My theory is that citizens are more open to socialism when it is localized. We have brains programmed to have tribalist leanings. We are more open to our tax dollars going to help fellow community members rather than to help someone thousands of miles away. The FD/PD are largely funded through state/local taxes. Perhaps more conservative-minded citizens would be open to 'universal health care' if it was done by their own states. I really don't know for sure. What are your thoughts?
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Health care isn't anything like police or fire. Why not food and housing, too?
 
Geoist said:
I think if you polled most Americans they would agree that police and fire departments should be funded through taxpayer dollars. At the very least, nobody except the very far-right libertarians and randroids express their desire to privatize them. People agree that it is a smart use of our public dollars to support safe communities. So why doesn't health care fit into that equation? Why is it okay to tax someone who very well may never need a fireman, but not tax someone to help support public health? My theory is that citizens are more open to socialism when it is localized. We have brains programmed to have tribalist leanings. We are more open to our tax dollars going to help fellow community members rather than to help someone thousands of miles away. The FD/PD are largely funded through state/local taxes. Perhaps more conservative-minded citizens would be open to 'universal health care' if it was done by their own states. I really don't know for sure. What are your thoughts?
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The main reason to treat law enforcement differently to healthcare is that they belong to different categories of economic goods. The reason it is rational to do so is that their properties exclusivity are such that societal i.e. economic optimization requires that law enforcement and healthcare be produced differently. One is an economic Private Good, while the other is a "Public Good".

The case of the fire department technology used to be such that it was not easily possible to produce it as a private good, because there was no practical method of exclusion. So traditionally firefighting was a public service. This is no longer necessary, as we have evolved (financial) technology that would allow it to be produced more efficiently in the privat sector. But we largely haven't made the switch. Traditions and large vested interests stand in the way as in education.
 
I think the key difference is that putting out a fire is vastly different than repairing the damage caused by it which fire departments are not expected to do. The same is true of police, they may make an arrest but they are not expected to make you whole by offering any restitution. We have EMTALA that mandates emergency critical care be provided (by some facilities) to anyone regardless of one's ability to pay but beyond that they have no responsibility to render further treatment.
 
Harshaw said:
Health care isn't anything like police or fire.
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How is it different?


Why not food and housing, too?
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Government provides food stamps and public housing, so they are way ahead of you on that. ;)
 
Geoist said:
How is it different?
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A zillion ways. Is this a serious question?

Government provides food stamps and public housing, so they are way ahead of you on that. ;)
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So should it feed and clothe everyone universally? If not, why not?
 
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