Tax money already finding health care in the US

[TheNorwegian]

Please, help me understand this. I am not trying to pick a fight, but genuinely want to understand: Some health care in the US is funded with tax dollars, like Medicaid. According to this article the total amount in 2015 that went through the federal budget was $938 billion. This is roughly 3.000 per capita in tax money for "socialized" health care

Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?

When I look at the statistics for health costs per capita, $3000 per capita is almost the same as the total cost per capita in Finland. However, in Finland that expense covers everybody. So, tax payers in the US are already paying almost the same amount of tax for health purposes as people in Finland do - but for this money they do not get universal coverage.

List of countries by total health expenditure per capita - Wikipedia

Have I understood this correctly? Also, I wonder if the states or towns have some costs for health care funded by tax dollars - or is it 'only' federal dollars that go to this?

If I understand this correctly, then it is not a question of willingness to pay taxes or not - because US citizens already pay almost the same amounts in tax for health services as the Europeans do. Then I suppose it must be a question of costs (?)

 

[Greyy]

I'd like to answer your question. I imagine the US situation is very hard to understand for many non-Americans. It seems to have everything to with culture and so I'd like to post about it as impartially as I can.

In most cultures, people understand themselves as part of society and being dependent upon and contributing to it. When you turn on the lights in the morning, when you turn on the shower and get hot water, many people understand this is made possible because of what society offers them. Many take public transportation and go to work, it is because society has offered them an opportunity to realize their profession and give to society. Their compensation is based on their needs within society to care for themselves, plus compensation in giving and actualizing of their talents for the greater good.

Americans generally understand themselves as existing within society, but not so such being a part of it, as odd as that sounds. For example, some animals are highly social, to the point of being totally dependent on society for their needs. Other animals are highly independent, interacting with others of their species for territory or to mate. Humans are unique in that we both live together for a common good, have the potential to exist independently (although people can rarely be alone for long), and actually exploit members of their own species. Centuries ago, an Englishman named Thomas Hobbes (I believe, rather wrongly) explained this contradiction as a result of people being independent by nature, at war with others in their nature state, but agreeing intellectually and through action, to produce a society for greater individual prosperity, through law and enforcement.

His ideas were popular which is why many in the English speaking world have general sense that a "Thomas Hobbes" existed. By the time he was born, many Europeans became exploring the world with newly discovered ship technologies. Ironically, Christopher Columbus traveled west from Europe seeking to create a new relationship between the great societies of Europe and the great Chinese society written by Marco Polo, traveling east, centuries before. Instead, he found the peoples of America, thinking they were in India, and exploited them. Europeans sought out new peoples to exploit and Christianize....

 

[Greyy]

The eastern shore of North America was different. Europeans generally weren't interested in it, despite it being close, because it was hotter and wetter than the French colonies of eastern Canada. Spain had already dominated Mexico to South America.

People settled in those early American colonies to make new opportunities, away from a society that determined their fate by birth. Beyond those first colonies was almost an entire continent of land ready to be worked. You want money? Go west! Make your fortune. Your wealth is limited only by your work.

Most Americans are here today because their ancestors wanted opportunity. They gave up in many cases, everthing they ever knew, even security, for the chance to be something more than they were back home. In time, we even took up arms and attacked our own British government to secure the ideas we left for, and the values we created.

Americans understood themselves as being here for opportunities. They didn't belong to a society, a culture, or an established government. They realized what Thomas Hobbes wrote about society - people existing independently, having as little government as needed for society to function.

We lived independently of each other for most of our needs, but we helped our neighbors. In the early 20th Century, it became clear that charities alone could not provide the needs of those left behind. Thus, we started creating social programs. We created medicare and medicaid as part of that.

 

[Greyy]

Now to answer...

Americans originally paid for their healthcare out of pocket. In the mid 20th Century, it became common for employers to offer insurance. It created a sense that we are to care for ourselves and those working had access to healthcare.

When people began retiring, and healthcare began helping people live longer, it became necessary to offer government funded healthcare to the elderly and even the poor. This was nothing new - social security was created to help people when they retired or became disabled.

Americans are bizarre in providing government assistance in all kinds of areas, like other developed nations, while also condemning it. This contradiction creates vast amounts of waste instead of creating a comprehensive system. Americans want everyone to be covered, but do not want government in charge of healthcare. We have some people on free or subsidized healthcare, while others spend a fortune, who earn the same money but never apply for government insurance.

Meanwhile, politicians do next to nothing while insurance companies, which should not exist, or at least to the extend they do, rake in vast amounts of money pushing papers, and costing us and hospitals lots more in pushing papers.

We kill people, and waste money, over cultural notions of "freedom."

 

[Greyy]

Have I understood this correctly? Also, I wonder if the states or towns have some costs for health care funded by tax dollars - or is it 'only' federal dollars that go to this?

It is complex, but states and the federal government use state/federal money to provide free and subsidized insurance for those with lower incomes. States have the potential to create a state government insurance program that covers all state residents with state taxes along with federal money that applies to the state like all the others. No state has attempted this.

The federal government actually collects specific money from workers to fund a single payer system for the retired called medicare.

If I understand this correctly, then it is not a question of willingness to pay taxes or not - because US citizens already pay almost the same amounts in tax for health services as the Europeans do. Then I suppose it must be a question of costs (?)

Americans are afraid of the government. Healthcare, which is seen as being sick and on a hospital bed, is something they feel they should control, not the government. I am not going to argue for the rationality of that, because it is not rational. There is no argument for the mess that is our healthcare system.