Re: Public Health Care (was Re: More Green Party)

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Jun 29 2000 - 23:57:07 MDT


At 06:00 PM 29/06/00 -0700, James wrote:

>> there's nothing stopping people here from buying insurance and getting
>> swifter treatment.)

>except perhaps that they've already been taxed for
>as much money as they can afford to support the less responsive government
>system. All this does is allow a narrower segment of the well-off to be
>able to afford high-quality treatment than would otherwise be the case.

There's a 30 percent rebate on the health tax component (which is a bit
over 1 percent of tax levied, as I recall, a pretty good investment in
social utility in my view) to those taking out private insurance. And as I
mentioned, quite often people with insurance are treated by public
hospitals anyway, where specialised equipment and expertise have been
purchased at communal expense.

Damien Broderick



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