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Old 12-21-06, 02:58 AM   #12
Torpedo Fodder
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Whitby, Ontario
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Once the government starts providing health care, it becomes a state interest how well you take care of yourself. Your behavior becomes a factor in government expenditure. If you smoke, drink, eat fatty foods, don't exercise, you are costing the government money, and therefore, subject to government sanction.
I actually have a few thoughts on how to reduce or eliminate that problem in a universal healthcare system: simply mandade that any self-inflicted illnesses (such as emphysema from smoking) must be paid either out of your own pocket or by private health insurance. Also, I would allow private healthcare providers to continue to function alongside the public system, and there would be incentive to use the private system via some kind of tax credit, the idea being to encourage people who can pay for medical services to do so, while ensuring that anyone who can't pay can still get medical care. Also, to prevent the formation of a "two-teir" system (where you have a shining private system and a grossly underfunded public one that has vastly lower quality of care), I would make it manditory for all public servants and politicians (and their families) to use the public healthcare system exclusivly.
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