The solution is you make them all pay proportionally through the tax system...it is the only fair way to handle the swelling numbers of the free loaders.
I found that interesting because I have also been talking about free riders lately so I did a double take. It seems like we're talking about different segments of the population. You seem to be talking about those who choose not to have insurance coverage. I'm talking about those who would not pay through a proportional tax system a reasonable portion of the costs they incur, thus riding free on the taxes of others.
Your free-loaders, aka weasels, would be some segment of the approximately 45 million Americans who don't have health insurance. I don't think you intend it to mean all of them, although perhaps you do. You single out those who choose not to get insurance because they are healthy and who stiff the system when they are taken ill. Do you mean the whole 45 million of them or just the latter sub-group? (I'll call your group weasels rather than free loaders to more easily distinguish it from my free riders.)
Those who choose not to get insurance, then stiff the providers provoke me, too, although it would seem that anyone who is uninsured by choice would probably have the means for the providers to collect, at least over time. So, I think this would be a very small albeit irritating group.
My free-riders, are, unfortunately, a very large group--the majority if not the vast majority.
A small group of weasels, while upsetting, is manageable. We could find a way of punishing them, for example, or we could tell them to go doctor themselves. My large group of free-riders, OTOH, is the elephant in the living room.
Since you and I have been chatting, I've been looking into funding in Canada, without much success. I don't know if there is just less info out there or whether my knowledge of Canada isn't great enough to know how to find it.
In the US, however, I can easily compute that somewhere between 75 and 90 percent of Americans would be free-riders were we to fund as you do. Those are the Americans who would get more from the system in benefits (the cost of health insurance) than they pay in income taxes. I can't find equivalent data on Canada. It's reasonable to assume that your proportion of free-riders is not dramatically less, perhaps as little as one half. Still that's a lot. Fortunately for the free-riders, your culture doesn't seem to think of them that way. |
