Sorry hector13 - I was not trying to be pretentious. I get railed on by my wife for sounding condescending all the time too...it's not my intent but my tone is terrible.
My comment about schools was because this is basic philosophy I was taught and I guess I take it for granted that schools still teach this: if you give up responsibility, you also give up freedom. Chalk it up to more systematic decay or conspiracy or whatever why this is not taught any more.
As for "free" - Words matter, especially during periods when the meanings start to shift. So yeah I'm going to encourage not being complacent about it.
No problem. I also apologize for the bluntness of my response, but I’m too tired to mince words, and you picked someone who has been too sensitive about their intelligence for ages. Regardless, you didn’t deserve quite that strong a response.
Anyhow, this may partly be a cultural thing; I’m a British citizen, so “free” healthcare (meaning free at the point of use) has been available for my entire life, paid for via taxes and national insurance contributions, and I’ve grown rather attached to it. While you may have had to wait for it, you would eventually get what you needed/wanted and you didn’t have to worry about how it would impact your finances for the months following diagnosis and treatment.
I live in the US now, and been to the doctor all of one time. Probably won’t go again, but that was partly because of all the goddamn hoops I had to jump through to get seen, and then being charged for it afterward (it was a physical, but I also had a problem that required blood tests that didn’t fall under the “one free yearly physical” thing from my insurance) despite paying $600 a month for coverage, and I honestly have difficulty understanding why people prefer that over what I grew up with.