The government should or should not pay for health care and education, some say both|| but is it an issue of state-paid? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
The government should or should not pay for health care and education, some say both|| but is it an issue of state-paid? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Whether health care and education should be funded by the government is one of the most basic divisions in today’s political philosophy, striking at ideological differences regarding proper state function, what rights an individual possesses, and under what conditions a society can be fair and work well. Both positions are grounded in weighty intellectual traditions that merit real engagement. After thoroughly reviewing the evidence, I strongly assert that government financing of healthcare and education is not only proper or even an appropriate role for any state to take on but one of the greatest things a society can ever invest in for its collective welfare and future economy.
Critics of government in healthcare and education typically make their case with a combination of individual freedom, economic efficiency, and small government. Those who hold this view assert that individuals ought to be primarily responsible for their own health care costs and educational choices — that government provision relies on coercive taxation in order to provide services for some at the expense of others, and that market competition between private providers leads to better quality, greater innovation, and more efficient resource allocation than can be achieved by government monopolies or tightly controlled public systems. America has to be the clearest example among rich states of a national health contract that eschewed public provision in favour of private care delivery (for its own citizens — lack of coverage for many thousands is an ineluctable part of this ‘too American’ type) while defenders cite as evidence of success, stunning innovations in medical research and treatment with possible transmission effects from the competition-hungry commercialised health system.
A further, principled, consideration concerning personal responsibility and the sustainability of public provision is also in play. The thinking here is that universal free services will always create demand beyond what public systems can supply efficiently, resulting in waiting lists and resource rationing and decline of quality which richer consumers will escape by buying private alternatives with the less well-off fobbed off with degraded public options. Supporters of means-tested or privately funded provision argue that this type of approach is not only more economically efficient but also aligns better with individual preferences when contrasted with universal government provision financed through general taxation.
But the case for government-provided health care and education is much stronger on moral grounds, not to say empirical grounds. The most basic ethical reason is that healthcare and education are not regular consumer goods whose provisioning can be entrusted to market mechanisms without manifestly immoral results. Health is not a lifestyle choice — sickness happens independent of behaviour and often without notice, results in costs that individuals cannot rationally prepare for or insure without collective risk-pooling strategies. There is no humanity to a healthcare system that allows through the Open Door for some – but not all citizens, as needed and demand are turned away at that same door if unable to afford entrance – so this creates suffering, loss of life that could have been prevented & needless deteriorating of health equity in society — circumstances which strike deep into the heart of any society with any values. The experience of the United States — where health outcomes are among the poorest in the developed world while spending is far and away the highest — lays to rest any contention that market provision yields better results in this sphere.
Education is either similar in this respect — or, if anything, even more persuasive as an argument for the case of public provision. The most powerful mechanism to social mobility seen in any society is access to quality education, and when that access is determined by ability to pay, the result is the intergenerational entrenchment of advantage and disadvantage at odds with the meritocratic ideals almost every society holds up publicly. Conscience has long been heard on the injustices associated with the market reliance in determining Mexico’s human capital endowment, since children do not select their families and cannot be moral actors in relation to what educational opportunities are available given the financial resources their families can afford. Nordic countries, with the most extensive government-funded education and healthcare systems at least partially account for their consistently best-in-the-world rankings in social mobility, educational attainment and population health, provide compelling empirical evidence that public provision of these services produce results unattainable by market alternatives.
And important economic reasons to provide it publicly that go beyond the ethical arguments. Having a healthy, well-educated workforce is the most effective resource with declining returns to national economic productivity according to virtually all analyses of public healthcare and education funding; there is not only an argument in favor of efficient labor intervention for equity purposes but two arguments — 1) the demand-side effectiveness of such institutions as productive infrastructure secondary only perhaps for dynamic capitalist production strategies and 2) contemporary educational technologies and competencies holding promise against much more expensive investments across generations. In contrast, the costs to productivity, innovation and social strength caused by preventable illness and poorly educated people are huge, not only endlessly wasteful but also clearly detrimental to the economic performance of societies failing to make these investments.
To sum up, I have no doubt that in-depth public engagement with healthcare and education should be both ethical requirement and affirmable truth. In short, you are: healthcare and education are not commodities of the market, but rather citizen rights living in an active citizenship for a just, moving and productive society – and evidence from some of humanity’s widest development outcomes point decisively to public (not private) provision as the model that achieves them best.