Quote:
Originally Posted by rahl
I personally don't want higher taxes to pay for healthcare.
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The thing is, you pay for your healthcare now - either you fork out for insurance OR your employer does on your behalf. You *shouldn't* spend any more - if this cash went to the govt rather than a 'for profit' insurance company, I'd suggest you'd be no worse off.
In Australia, we have a mix of public and private hospitals and we *can* buy private insurance (though this is not really required). What our tax money does is give us access to a GP when we need it. Sometimes this is absolutely free, but sometimes you pay the doctor and claim most or all of the money back from the government.
If I end up in a public ER, whatever needs to be done to me, is done, and I'll not have to pull out my wallet at all (except to show my government 'medicare' card). A lot of private hospitals have ERs as well and, from memory, you can be charged for some thing when visiting.
RE operations - if you have something life threatening, then that is done for free in a public hospital - you don't get a choice of doctor (but then I'd not really have much input). For non-life threatening (e.g. knee reconstruction) you can go onto a public waiting list, which can be quite long, OR you can get it done ASAP in a private hospital. If you take option B, you'd better have insurance or be happy to foot the (sizeable) bill.
I think the system works pretty well and we do have some of the best health care in the world.
The linked article talked about the aging population - that is going to be an issue for Oz as well and the government is trying to encourage better earning people (with tax breaks) to take out private health insurance - this is an effort to make better use of the private hospitals we already have.
In terms of being taxed for porn? I think it is an unlikely scenario, but whoever raised it might find themselves out of office (for meddling in private affairs).