There's a number of people in America who would like a universal system funded by the government, a "Medicare for all" system. It polls really well with the public, sixty plus percent support it. Proponents will show you stuff like this:





and point out that if America scrapped its lean efficient private system and adopted a bloated bureaucratic inefficient government run system like other major economies then everybody in America could get healthcare for less total expenditure than America pays out now.

It's not happening though.

Sixty percent say it's a good idea until you mention that they might not have the level of choice over doctors, treatments and so on that they have now, wait times might go up and so on and support collapses. The majority of voters, note her voters, are happy with their health insurance. Mention that the new system might be worse for them and they don't want to take the risk. The people who would get healthcare under this system by and large don't vote. This is the thing with a lot of Democratic issues. They're on the side of minorities be it racial or gay/gender stuff or stuff than benefits non voters and it's a difficult way to win elections. Opposing all this stuff and siding with the majority is an easy way to win elections. Doing the right thing is by and large a political losing strategy.

Add on the fact that medical stuff/hospital bills/health insurance etc were increasing in cost faster than regular inflation which helped create widespread support for change but the Obamacare bill actually contained a lot of provisions which have bent the cost curve back in line with the prevailing rate of inflation. Add on it would be impossible to renegotiate vast amounts of already agreed contracts between health insurance companies, hospitals and so on and so a lot of the savings would be impossible for years/decades. Things are not going to change anytime soon. America is going to continue with its current system for the forseeable future.

Now taxation. You may think taxation is theft or that it can be perceived as highway robbery but the thing is somebody has to build and maintain the highways. It turns out that large groups of people also need some level of law enforcement, justice and prison systems, they need schools where their kids can be educated enough to help them find employment, they need some level of national defence, endless other stuff like food safety inspectors and air traffic controllers and customs and border officials and embassies in foreign countries and people to try and preserve clean air and water and services for children without families for whatever reason and so on and so on and so on. Some countries even allow their senior citizens to have some level of social security in later life and a bit of healthcare too.

To pay for all these things we sent part of our income to a bunch of people we call the "government". These people then use this money in the least inefficient way humanity has yet come up with to provide these various things to the people. It's absolutely impossible to run a modern society without the things listed above and endless more not mentioned. Kids need to be educated today so that there's a future generation of adult workers with the ability to do the jobs which will keep the whole economy functioning smoothly. Nobody likes paying taxes but everybody needs to understand that the "government" needs to be adequately funded to provide all of these services otherwise everybody becomes worse off to a greater or lesser degree soon enough. So, sitting here in my zero percent income tax jurisdiction looking out at my palm trees and coral sand and drinking vintage Krug I urge you to consider just how vital it is that you continue to keep funding these critical services.

There are alternatives however. There's currently a zero tax libertarian paradise near America called Haiti. They decided to get rid of their bloated inefficient government and are now reaping the benefits:

The last 10 remaining senators in Haiti’s parliament have officially left office, leaving the country without a single democratically elected government official.The expiration of the officials’ terms at midnight on Monday formally concluded their time in office – and with it, the last semblance of democratic order in the beleaguered Caribbean nation.

Haiti – which is currently engulfed in gang violence and the worst malnutrition crisis in decades – now officially has no functioning parliament as the senators were the last of 30 to remain in office after successive failed efforts to hold elections.
There is now no constitutional representation at any state level, the latest sign that the country has become a failed state.
“The constitution, which until now we have been referring to as the framework for political transition, is essentially just a letter, because none of the institutional architecture that it describes is currently in place,” said Renata Segura, deputy director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group, a peacebuilding thinktank.
Haiti is plagued by a series of acute, overlapping crises as gangs violently exploit a power vacuum to expand their control of the capital.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...y-failed-state





They seem to be having some teething troubles but I'm sure they'll sort it out.



There's a bloke I know here who earned his living on the high seas. For a couple of decades he was an actual pirate and then graduated to disposing toxic waste. And he used to dispose of it by buying a knackered old ship, filling the ship with the shit, employing a skeleton crew of third worlders to sail it to the Indian Ocean and crash it full steam into the coastline of another libertarian paradise, Somalia.





Good evening, we're from the Mogadishu Neighbourhood Watch Scheme and we're here to look after your home

and possessions for safe keeping. So if you can leave immediately please, and on foot too. That land Cruiser that

you upgraded to after taking advantage of Somalia's low tax environment looks hand, we'll look after that for you too.

Now fuck off.







There not being any government there a while ago he could dispose of shipfuls of chemical/nuclear waste with very few of the costs typically associated with disposing that kind of stuff. The crew baled out before the ship hit the coast, got in his smaller boat and buggered off and then did it again. Anyway, this left an unfortunate series of negative externalities for any future Somalian government to clean up. All this unpleasantness can be avoided if you just pay your taxes. You know it makes sense.