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silveradeptI'm guessing most people in the United States have heard of the Tennessee man whose home burned down because the fire department had not collected his service fee. In addition to the taxes to his taxing district, if the person wanted fire service from the nearby city, he would have had to pay an additional $75, money that he was willing to pay to get the fire department to put out the blaze after they arrived to soak a neighbor's yard because that person had paid their surcharge. Of course, in this particular vein of opt-in government, and in the world where such service models reside, it's natural to assume both that the person whose house was burning down would stiff them the fee once his house was saved, and that something like fire services is more like insurance, where you can opt out and carry substantial risk on your own if you do.
No, really. that is the kind of thing they believe in.
For want of $75, a fee apparently forgotten rather than deliberately withheld, a house burned down, destroying several hundred thousand dollars worth of material and taking the lives of the family pets. This does not seem to be a sound decision monetarily. From a more human point of view, what kind of government is willing to let a house burn down that hasn't already been condemned or otherwise proven to be more of a hazard standing up than it is in ashes?
Apparently, in Tennessee, they feel the most effective form of government service is fee-based. Are they also of the opinion that police services are an extra fee? How do they feel about libraries and public schools? If something like this is ringing some bells for you, you paid attention in school enough to learn that all of the services we consider tax-supported essentials were, at some point in our history, fee-based private hires. Police used to be hired on a fee basis to protect property, functioning as private security. Fire services used to be an opt-in fee paid. And then disasters hit, and the people realized it would be better for everyone in the long run if those services were contracted by the government for all of the people in their sphere of influence and paid for through taxes. It's much easier to spread the costs of catastrophe prevention and public safety among a lot of people than make a few who can't afford it have to carry them. Same with education and library services.
Besides, if you want to see what kind of damage gets wreaked upon people routinely because tehy can't afford private services and there are no public alternatives, check out health care and insurances. Everything, from check-ups, to transport to hospital and whatever gets done there costs money. The current options are to get some form of insurance, with varying levels of protection and cost. Anyone too poor to afford this insurance gets nothing, or gets put in a lottery to see whether they'll get lucky enough to have a benefactor pick up the cost of their insurance. To extend the fire metaphor, some insurances cover the cost of fire extinguishers to put out small problems before they get bigger, and others force you to wait until the house is on fire and will be destyroyed before they'll send anyone to put out the blaze, and even then, you still have to pay for some part of putting out the fire. If your ambulance company isn't in your insurance network, or your doctor hasn't been approved of, they'll pay less to nothing, regardless of whether the company or doctor is the best as what they do or not. So even people who thought they had protection may watch the house burn down and the insurance company refuse to pay anything related to it. How much easier is it to spread the costs across a much greater pool of people, so that everyone can be certain that they'll be able to get what they need without having to worry about whether their insurance company ill pay for it?
The fact that no humans were hurt in this will probably inspire less of a call to fix the problem. What we should be insisting on is that everyone be covered, without having to pay in additional surcharges because of geography, for the basic requirements of functioning society - shelter, food, police, fire, medicine, schools, libraries, and infrastructure. Past that point, people are free to do with their money as they like and contract with whomever they like for additional things. We should be long past the point where someone's house burns down because they're not inside the city limits and thus have to pay additional fees to get their closest fire services to come out and put out the blaze. We're past the point where security in our persons and possessions is a for-hire service only.
Yet there are still plenty of politicians that want to return us to the past times when we had to pay for all of those things. Not coincidentally, they're being funded by, own, or otherwise have an interest in companies that stand to profit by rolling back the safety net. Complain as you like about your tax burden - but recognize how much you use the things paid for by that tax burden every freaking day of your life. And require anyone with a vision of Galtian utopia or "limited government" to explain fully how they intend for people to be able to afford their newly-privatized services. If it sounds like anything other than a variation of "I Got Mine, Frak You" or "Some people just don't deserve to live", let me know. I will be very interested in how they've done it.
No, really. that is the kind of thing they believe in.
For want of $75, a fee apparently forgotten rather than deliberately withheld, a house burned down, destroying several hundred thousand dollars worth of material and taking the lives of the family pets. This does not seem to be a sound decision monetarily. From a more human point of view, what kind of government is willing to let a house burn down that hasn't already been condemned or otherwise proven to be more of a hazard standing up than it is in ashes?
Apparently, in Tennessee, they feel the most effective form of government service is fee-based. Are they also of the opinion that police services are an extra fee? How do they feel about libraries and public schools? If something like this is ringing some bells for you, you paid attention in school enough to learn that all of the services we consider tax-supported essentials were, at some point in our history, fee-based private hires. Police used to be hired on a fee basis to protect property, functioning as private security. Fire services used to be an opt-in fee paid. And then disasters hit, and the people realized it would be better for everyone in the long run if those services were contracted by the government for all of the people in their sphere of influence and paid for through taxes. It's much easier to spread the costs of catastrophe prevention and public safety among a lot of people than make a few who can't afford it have to carry them. Same with education and library services.
Besides, if you want to see what kind of damage gets wreaked upon people routinely because tehy can't afford private services and there are no public alternatives, check out health care and insurances. Everything, from check-ups, to transport to hospital and whatever gets done there costs money. The current options are to get some form of insurance, with varying levels of protection and cost. Anyone too poor to afford this insurance gets nothing, or gets put in a lottery to see whether they'll get lucky enough to have a benefactor pick up the cost of their insurance. To extend the fire metaphor, some insurances cover the cost of fire extinguishers to put out small problems before they get bigger, and others force you to wait until the house is on fire and will be destyroyed before they'll send anyone to put out the blaze, and even then, you still have to pay for some part of putting out the fire. If your ambulance company isn't in your insurance network, or your doctor hasn't been approved of, they'll pay less to nothing, regardless of whether the company or doctor is the best as what they do or not. So even people who thought they had protection may watch the house burn down and the insurance company refuse to pay anything related to it. How much easier is it to spread the costs across a much greater pool of people, so that everyone can be certain that they'll be able to get what they need without having to worry about whether their insurance company ill pay for it?
The fact that no humans were hurt in this will probably inspire less of a call to fix the problem. What we should be insisting on is that everyone be covered, without having to pay in additional surcharges because of geography, for the basic requirements of functioning society - shelter, food, police, fire, medicine, schools, libraries, and infrastructure. Past that point, people are free to do with their money as they like and contract with whomever they like for additional things. We should be long past the point where someone's house burns down because they're not inside the city limits and thus have to pay additional fees to get their closest fire services to come out and put out the blaze. We're past the point where security in our persons and possessions is a for-hire service only.
Yet there are still plenty of politicians that want to return us to the past times when we had to pay for all of those things. Not coincidentally, they're being funded by, own, or otherwise have an interest in companies that stand to profit by rolling back the safety net. Complain as you like about your tax burden - but recognize how much you use the things paid for by that tax burden every freaking day of your life. And require anyone with a vision of Galtian utopia or "limited government" to explain fully how they intend for people to be able to afford their newly-privatized services. If it sounds like anything other than a variation of "I Got Mine, Frak You" or "Some people just don't deserve to live", let me know. I will be very interested in how they've done it.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-07 07:40 pm (UTC)