Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hcrvx2.UUCP
Path: utzoo!hcr!hcrvx2!jimr
From: jimr@hcrvx2.UUCP (Jim Robinson)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: who should pay for education. sort of.
Message-ID: <2785@hcrvx2.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Mar-87 16:11:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hcrvx2.2785
Posted: Fri Mar  6 16:11:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Mar-87 06:38:21 EST
References: <223@fornax.uucp>
Reply-To: jimr@hcrvx2.UUCP (Jim Robinson)
Distribution: can
Organization: HCR Corporation, Toronto
Lines: 41
Summary: 

In article <223@fornax.uucp> chapman@fornax.uucp (John Chapman) expounds:
>> In article ??? moi writes:
>> Suppose hospitals decide to charge the full cost for each patient.
>> Do you have a problem with this - people paying for what they get?
>> Then suppose Canada health loans are implemented to cover these higher costs.
>> Reasonable, no?
>> Now we say : having "you" healthy benefits the whole country so we will
>> forgive your health loans as long as you remain a member of this country.
>> [Naturally, if the patient refuses to sign the required  promissory note we
>> refuse to provide him with free health care;  and if he can't afford the full
>> cost of a triple bypass - tough, he had his chance]
>> That's it. What is so radical or silly John?
>> 
>> J.B. Robinson
>
>I hope people can see the obvious flaws in this attempt at an analogy so
>I won't waste a lot of space explaining it. However Jim, the next time
>you voluntarily decide to get a brain tumour I shall try to see to it
>that you are billed the full cost for treatment.

What about the 18 year old kid from a low-income blue collar
background? What other *real* option does he have than getting a
subsidized post-secondary education, thereby making himself indebted to
the state, if he wants to make a better life for himself? Is his
position really any less involuntary than that of the brain tumour
patient? Neither one asked to be placed in their respective
predicaments, yet, because of high costs, both would be required to
seek government assistance in order to redress their situations.

Also, just because John's plan would not initially consider medical
subsidies in the same manner as education subsidies does not mean that
future governments are required to do likewise. Since there would
already exist the concept of the state having a recoverable investment
in the individual (I'm starting to wonder whether we're talking about
people or mutual funds), it would not be that difficult to redefine the
extent of this investment to include  medical and  possibly other
subsidies.  If it so happened that emigration was running higher than
the government of the day preferred, increasing the breadth of this
coverage would be a convenient means of decreasing said emigration.

J.B. Robinson