You might get an intelligent answer.
Cheng Tsung-Mei for Health Affairs interviews Thomas Zeltner, former health minister for Switzerland. (You can't read this part except you can, because I'm reproducing it here.) The Swiss adopted a system in 1996 that's something of a model for the PPACA, only better, because poor people don't get second-class coverage.
Cheng: Many Americans bristle at the idea of being mandated to purchase health insurance and see it as a violation of their individual freedom. The Swiss are known for jealously guarding their individual freedom, too, yet they accept their own mandate to have adequate health insurance. As one such freedom-loving Swiss individual, would you defend the Swiss mandate?
Zeltner: That’s easy.We will not let people suffer and die when they need healthcare. The Swiss believe that in return, individuals owe it to society to make provision ahead of time for their health care when they fall seriously ill. At that point, they may not have enough money to pay for it. So we consider the health insurance mandate to be a form of socially responsible civic conduct. In Switzerland, “individual freedom” does not mean that you should be free to live irresponsibly and freeload from others, as you would put it.
Cheng: What if you do not have a job or are poor? How do you own up to the mandate then?
Zeltner: If you do not have a job, then, obviously, there are two options. Either you’re very rich or on a pension, and you don’t need public assistance. Or you’re poor—in which case you will get a subsidy from the government to help pay for the insurance.
There. Would that be so difficult for Democratic politicians to say?
0 Yorumlar