Repeat your exact comment replacing the word “government” with “employer and its chosen for-profit insurance provider” and you’ve described the United States.
My employer can fire me for any or no reason and no notice and I’d be left with a short COBRA runway of suddenly-expensive healthcare, which I now can’t afford because I was just fired.
My employer can (and does) change my insurance provider, add or remove benefits, and I have zero say over that process. I certainly can’t vote for a new CEO or request a different provider from my company. Take it or leave it.
My health and well-being is tied up with the same entity that tells me what to do for 8 hours a day. That doesn’t feel like “freedom” to me.
Universal healthcare as a concept is not by itself related to authoritarianism. Indeed, guaranteeing healthcare (whether it be state-run like the UK or all-private like Germany) and paying for it through tax revenue rather than through employment subsidy is a feature of many Western democracies.
>Repeat your exact comment replacing the word “government” with “employer and its chosen for-profit insurance provider” and you’ve described the United States.
You can thank government for that as well, as Price Controls from WWII, and ongoing regulations and tax burdens are the leading reasons employment and healthcare are linked in the way they are.
>Universal healthcare as a concept is not by itself related to authoritarianism.
If you do not believe that is authoritarianism then I shutter to think what it would take for you to recognize an authoritarian system
> Indeed, guaranteeing healthcare (whether it be state-run like the UK or all-private like Germany) and paying for it through tax revenue rather than through employment subsidy is a feature of many Western democracies.
That is a false dilemma, I support neither system nor is employer provided vs government provided the only choice we have as a society
Using the Authoritarian nations (though I am sure your going to disagree describing them as authoritarian) of the UK and Germany to support your position is not going to win me over.
I support individual liberty, and individual rights, and generally only Negative forms of right.
the UK, Germany, and most of the EU have adopted a position of Collective rights, and a whole host of Positive rights which are Authoritarian in nature. Sure they are not NK or China, but simply because they are not full on Totalitarian regime's does not make them libertarian either
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Repeat your exact comment replacing the word “government” with “employer and its chosen for-profit insurance provider” and you’ve described the United States.
My employer can fire me for any or no reason and no notice and I’d be left with a short COBRA runway of suddenly-expensive healthcare, which I now can’t afford because I was just fired.
My employer can (and does) change my insurance provider, add or remove benefits, and I have zero say over that process. I certainly can’t vote for a new CEO or request a different provider from my company. Take it or leave it.
My health and well-being is tied up with the same entity that tells me what to do for 8 hours a day. That doesn’t feel like “freedom” to me.
Universal healthcare as a concept is not by itself related to authoritarianism. Indeed, guaranteeing healthcare (whether it be state-run like the UK or all-private like Germany) and paying for it through tax revenue rather than through employment subsidy is a feature of many Western democracies.
I guess the benefit is that it's easier to change employer than government.
I certainly don’t change my employer as often as I vote.
You can thank government for that as well, as Price Controls from WWII, and ongoing regulations and tax burdens are the leading reasons employment and healthcare are linked in the way they are.
If you do not believe that is authoritarianism then I shutter to think what it would take for you to recognize an authoritarian system
That is a false dilemma, I support neither system nor is employer provided vs government provided the only choice we have as a society
Using the Authoritarian nations (though I am sure your going to disagree describing them as authoritarian) of the UK and Germany to support your position is not going to win me over.
I support individual liberty, and individual rights, and generally only Negative forms of right.
the UK, Germany, and most of the EU have adopted a position of Collective rights, and a whole host of Positive rights which are Authoritarian in nature. Sure they are not NK or China, but simply because they are not full on Totalitarian regime's does not make them libertarian either