>In every public health system in a capitalist country that I'm aware of,
>the immediate costs of health care are payed by workers - either through
>insurance contributions or through taxes. Now, to a greater or lesser
>extent, these costs can be indirectly forced onto capitalists, by
>concerted action by workers forcing them to increase wages or by the
>state mandating that the wage include a fixed amount paid for health
>care costs (that is, employer contributions). Any way you cut it, the
>workers are going to get screwed, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less;
>the state using its coercive powers universally may mean that we get
>screwed slightly less, and makes the task of resisting that screwing
>slightly easier.
Bosses pay tax, not workers. If the situation was as you assert, that it is all paid for by workers, then the bosses would have no objection to socialised health care or other social welfare schemes. yet, oddly, they always do object.
> > If your "left" favors the state soaking workers on the theory that it
>> might someday use similar logic to justify soaking the capitalists,
>> sign me up for the right.
>
>I'm not talking about soaking the capitalists at all; I'd rather see
>capital abolished. I'm talking about health care policy within
>capitalism, where soaking the capitalists, or abolishing capital, are
>not on the immediate agenda.
It has to be paid for. All very well to talk about paying for it with taxes on workers, but the workers can only pay tax out of the wages paid to them by bosses and workers will resist any reduction in take-home pay. The money that they theoretically get paid, which they never see because the boss pays it direct to the government, isn't what gets workers out of bed and off to work. The bosses know that, workers know that, the government knows that.
Its the bosses who would have to pay and they'll fight it. You can't fool them with nonsense about it not costing them anything. You only confuse yourself.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas