• Sunflier@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    At least we provide our citizens with basic things like health insurance as a right.

    -All Norway has to say.

    • P1nkman@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      As a Norwegian, I would never call it health “insurance”. It’s just part of the social security that we pay taxes for.

      • Sunflier@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Well, the state is acting as a single payer for all health care its populace needs. The money is not going from you directly to the service provider. An example of that would be you paying someone to rotate your tires. Rather, the state is providing payment to the doctor for services provided to treat your health care needs. Thus, the state is acting as an insurer whose premium is the taxes you pay. You just get a whole lot of extras for the premium you pay (like road work, disaster relief, penalizing criminality, etc.). That is a textbook example of insurance.

        *Edit: for those of you who doubt what I say, I ask you to look at history to as an illustration. When the US was last trying to adopt universal care under Obama, who was it that dumped the buckets of money on advertising to water it down to a mere marketplace from Romneycare? It was the private insurance companies. What was the main reform that got adopted in that in lieu of state coverage? That the insurance companies could no longer deny people with pre-existing conditions.

        • mercano@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          I mean, the state provides public schools, free for all aged ≈5-18, but we don’t call it “education insurance.”

          • Sunflier@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            but we don’t call it “education insurance.”

            Did you not see where I said this?

            You just get a whole lot of extras for the premium you pay (like road work, disaster relief, penalizing criminality, etc.).

            • dellish@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              OK, they pay “health insurance premiums” and just happen to get the rest of a working state as extras. Got it.

              America brain is so weird sometimes.

        • aim_at_me@lemmy.nz
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          10 hours ago

          This is very american-centric thinking. Its just a service provided by the state on a needs basis. Like a road, or the immigration office.

        • P1nkman@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          So all my taxes are going to insurance somehow?

          Public transport insurance?

          Public school insurance?

          Public road insurance?

          • Sunflier@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            Did you not see where I said this?

            You just get a whole lot of extras for the premium you pay (like road work, disaster relief, penalizing criminality, etc.).

            But, yeah, at a conceptual level, society is ultimately a safety net (synonym for insurance) when compared to the individualism from living pre-stone age.