An interesting comment on yesterday’s piece is worth further comment, not least because it is so wrong on so many levels. When discussing the enforced wearing of helmets for quad bike riders, Dave offered this:
How about a compromise? If you refuse to wear a helmet on a trike or a quad and you have a crash then you cant use my taxes to pay for your healthcare?
Thought not
Anyone who has been discussing the smoking ban or drinking or obesity will have seen variations of this argument before. Indeed, health professionals have advanced the idea that healthcare should be rationed when applied to those awkward individuals who just won’t listen to those said professionals and insist upon unhealthy lifestyle choices. Without wishing to pick on Dave, he is merely regurgitating a tired meme that fails scrutiny.
What is forgotten when forwarding this argument is that we all pay for the service. Many of us pay in far more than we take out. If I bought a quad bike tomorrow and went out without a helmet and crashed, any healthcare I might need will have been paid for several times over as my interaction with the medical profession has been minimal, yet my contributions over the past thirty odd years have been considerable. The same applies to drinkers and smokers who subsidise the tax system with product related taxes. Dave does not, therefore, have to worry that his taxes are being used to patch up the recalcitrant, they are perfectly safe for when he needs them. The awkward squad have more than paid their share.
It is also worth pointing out that the failure to wear a helmet on a quad bike increases the risk of fatality, so in all likelihood, there will be no need for any medical care at all – just a funeral.
The argument, therefore, that taxes being frittered recklessly on those who pursue unacceptably risky lifestyles, as a valid justification for state enforcement simply doesn’t hold up.
So, as I pointed out to Dave, nice try, but no cigar.
No cigar at all.
The last time I used the NHS I had to travel to another town where I lived eight years ago to see the doctor I am registered with. Thats how infrequently I use the “service”. Even If I die a long and lingering death from lung cancer, my treatment would be well and truly paid for, many times over.
The main users of the NHS are parents with young children. “Ooh shes bumped her head. Quick. Get her to the A&E”
They are also the sole users of the education system but pay the least tax.
What advocates of this arguement also miss is that even if you were to get 100% compliance (everyone wears helmets, no one smokes or eats fatty food) or zero compliance, tax would not change. It would continue to go up as normal. Only the excuses for collecting it would change.
I like people advocating such ideas as Dave’s. You see, I WANT taxes to only pay for the care of those who paid in … aka private healthcare. That’s what logically lies at the end of that road if Dave’s sentiment is carried to its logical conclusion. Those who, like Dave, profess objection to taxes being used by those who are ‘irresponsible’, are effectively arguing for the NHS to be scrapped. I’ll bet he’d be horrified if that was proposed though. 😉
Dick, indeed. I recall Devil’s Kitchen telling us that his private health insurance did not increase due to his smoking. The response was that he was likely to die younger so therefore would be less of a burden.
I don’t think Dave intended to advocate private health insurance and an end to the NHS at all 😀
I’m a heavy user of the NHS as I have a long term chronic non self inflicted condition. I must have taken out far more than I’ve put in and in effect I’m being subsidised by the fit and healthy, for which I’m grateful. I’m also being subsidised by the smokers and drinkers, so thank you to them too. As Dick Puddlecote points out you can only have a universal healthcare system where everyone is treated regardless of financial input, of course where his argument falls down is that a completely private system would effectively exclude people like me who could never afford the high insurance premiums, even if we could find someone who would cover us.
Here’s an idea.
How about not allowing any NHS treatment for those on benefit cos they’re not contributing? Or for every employee of the public sector – on the grounds that they are not really making a contribution they are just giving some back? With a little effort you can whittle the NHS down to a service for about 3 people!
It is either for all, or no one. It is for the fat, the thin, the smokers, the non smokers, the daredevils, the bikers, the trikers, the cyclists, parachutists, the flyers, the pedestrian people that just cross roads, the drivers, the disabled, the fit, the lot!!!!! Every sodding one of us, and never mind if you don’t like what we do. We probably don’t like what you do! The important thing is that none of us feel we are superior, and more deserving of healthcare than anyone else.
Divide and …………………….
‘If you refuse to wear a helmet on a trike or a quad and you have a crash then you cant use my taxes to pay for your healthcare?’
Well, isn’t that the road to serfdom? You create a situation where the consumer is forced to buy a service, and then bolt on various conditions for using the service- as if it were a freely chosen service in the first place. This is the primary motivation reason for the prohibitionists’ existence. The ‘burden on the NHS’ argument is so powerful because we all pay for it, and it’s perceived to be an extension of the free rider problem when, in fact, it’s really an extension of violent control of private citizens. I’ve long argued against this ridiculous elitism. If you offer a universal health service, and campaign to that end, you absolutely morally and logically cannot suggest that certain behaviours be banned in order to make it affordable. Disgusting nonsense.
And when you have banned everything what happens?
Everyone still dies.
Ex/non smokers, ex/non drinkers, ex/non bikers, the lot.
No, we live forever in mind-numbing tedium.
Did you see that quad bike rider trapped under a cow?
What? You hold political opinions I don’t agree with and you still expect me to subsidise your healthcare?
I think, on balance, we can conclude that Dave thought wrong… Very wrong.
Re: LR comment on my comment. You speak for yourself. I intend to live forever out of spite.
“How about a compromise? If you refuse to wear a helmet on a trike or a quad and you have a crash then you cant use my taxes to pay for your healthcare?
Thought not”
Anybody that uses “Thought Not” as the definitive end of their argument should be hanged IMHO – on the NHS if necessary…