In my country I pay for health INSURANCE through income tax. I get healthcare for free. I call it free because I don’t pay to go to the doctor or the hospital. ** So why is this distinction important to me? Because this means I don’t have to worry about paying for healthcare. I don’t save any money by not going to the doctor. I don’t loose access to health care if I loose my job. As long as I am a citizen here, money and healthcare are two unrelated concerns.
I know that money is going from my salary and in some way to the hospitals etc, there’s no way around that. But this way I don’t have to worry about it. Not when paying my bills, not when needing health care.
Exactly if it comes out of tax technically it isn’t free but at the same time you also don’t really notice it.
Saying that you pay for health care through taxes it’s a bit like saying that you pay to walk down the street through taxes, technically of course you do pay to walk down the street through taxes, but it is such a bizarre thing to say.
That’s actually a really good analogy. Most people would accept that going for a walk is free, and that tax money (in most cases) paid the path.
In the UK everyone would say that healthcare is free. Obviously it isn’t but it’s not like you get a breakdown on your taxes so you don’t really notice the fact that you’re paying for it.
Even the belligerent idiots that try and move us over to a US style insurance system don’t really articulate that healthcare costs money. It’s such an abstract concert here.