You know, one thing I learned over the last 20-30 years is that one of society's purpose is that those who are better off help those who aren't.
I live in Germany and make a decent living. I don't go to the doctor very often (last time, apart from dental, was about 5 years ago and that because I had a very bad infection after a dental surgery). But I think it ok that I pay 6.5% of my gross income (and my employer another 6.5% of my gross income) into a health care system where everybody participates. This is part of being member of a society for me: solidarity with those who can't afford those things that more wealthy people can. And no, I'm not talking about the rich or super-rich. The rich people won't give a shit about poor people, unless you make it (somehow) legally mandatory.
I've spent a few years working in the US and realized how abstruse the US healthcare system is. A friend of us got sick in a restaurant, we called an ambulance (because she couldn't stand up anymore). When the ambulance arrived, they treated her a bit and asked her to transport her to a hospital (and yes, we were in favor of it). Because (at that time) she didn't have health-insurance, she refused because the cost would've been too high for her.
In Germany, that would never had happened. They wouldn't even ask in a situation like this and instead transport her to the hospital.
The life of a person is worth more than anything that money can buy. And who can say whose life is worth more than someone else's? Is the life of a poor person worth less than the life of a rich, or wealthy or middle-class person?
For me, healthcare is as basic a service as infrastructure, security, and rule-of-law: a society's job is to provide these services to anyone regardless of their income. We have governments because we decided that having such a centralized organization helps providing these services better than if we'd leave it completely to the market economy.
In Germany, everybody has a health insurance. If you can't pay for it, the government will pay - and we all, those that have enough income, participate in this social system. Admitted, it is not perfect and there are loopholes where the rich people can opt to privately insure themselves. But we are currently considering changing that, too. You can always opt to add private insurance on top of your government-mandated health insurance and that will stay. But the government mandated will be enough for about 80-90% of the people.
The great thing about it is that if you are employed, half of the insurance must be paid by the company. It is, after all, in their interest if their employees are not sick too often or get the best treatment if they get sick. And, again after all, the companies are part of the society and they need to do their part as well.
I don't want to live in a society where everybody is "his next" - we don't need societies for that. What we need societies for is that the strong help the weak, that the rich, wealthy or even middle-class people help those that are in need of their help.
Yes, governments are not the most efficient to do so. But markets are even worse. Thus, in Germany, we have an economic model called the "Social Market-Economy". It is quite ingenious and it helps that we have quite a high well-being.
This changed the last 20 years - to the worse - but I'm confident that the backlash will be large enough that it will change back to the better in the next 20 years. Most people, even (and especially) in business realized that the German Social Market-Economy is better than the anglo-saxon capitalism - at least for Germany. And this will bring about the change in the next 20 years.
