At point of service, yes. But not entirely. It’s still paid for lol. Which is the entire point that the person you’ve been replying to was trying to make.
This is a silly distinction. Do you insist that the supermarket relabels its “buy one get one free” offer as “buy one get one free at the point of purchase”? Do you call free refills “free at the point of dispensing”? When the theme park says that after you’ve paid admission, the rides are “free at the point of embarkation”?
They’re making a right wing talking point to try and make free healthcare sound expensive, when in fact free healthcare is free for the patient and less expensive for everybody than private healthcare, because the profit motive doesn’t drive efficiency, it drives profiteering.
Healthcare is free for everyone in the UK. Taxpayer or not, rich or poor, you can have a much healthcare as you need at zero cost to you. Free. That’s what free means. It doesn’t mean no one is paying. It means the patient isn’t paying. Did you think I thought that hospitals grow on trees? Of course I know that the government is paying for it, that’s WHY the healthcare is free. No charge. Unlimited. Free.
Taxation isn’t a change on healthcare AT ALL. It’s a charge on earnings, and claiming that free healthcare isn’t free is entitled nonsense from higher rate taxpayers. They pay tax. They don’t pay healthcare. No one does, unless they go private, because the healthcare is what’s free.
I think you’re assuming their intent is to make it sound expensive and that it’s a right wing talking point, but they’ve already said in their comments that they agree with a publicly funded healthcare system and are actively for it. They’ve also said their reason for wanting to use another word besides “free” to describe it is to explicitly deflate the right wing talking point that it’s being called “free” when it’s really not. If you call it publicly funded or something else besides free that gets more at the essence of what the thing is, then the right wingers can’t use the point that it “isn’t free” against you and the public discourse around it will then have to shift.
their reason for wanting to use another word besides “free” to describe it is to explicitly deflate the right wing talking point that it’s being called “free” when it’s really not
Relentlessly parroting right wing talking points to stop right wingers making them is an implausible absurd and counterproductive strategy. I don’t buy it at all, sorry.
Do you think that because the supermarket is paying for my buy one get one free box of cereal, it isn’t free, or do you think for one minute that people who call it free don’t realise that they’re still making a profit?
We’re not all morons, and we don’t need anyone to say that taxpayers fund the government every time we like something they do, we’re not five and we do understand, but the one thing we do know is that you don’t pay for your healthcare, no matter how much you need or how often, no matter how little tax you’ve ever paid or ever will pay in your life. Healthcare is free in the UK. Free. No charge.
At point of service, yes. But not entirely. It’s still paid for lol. Which is the entire point that the person you’ve been replying to was trying to make.
This is a silly distinction. Do you insist that the supermarket relabels its “buy one get one free” offer as “buy one get one free at the point of purchase”? Do you call free refills “free at the point of dispensing”? When the theme park says that after you’ve paid admission, the rides are “free at the point of embarkation”?
They’re making a right wing talking point to try and make free healthcare sound expensive, when in fact free healthcare is free for the patient and less expensive for everybody than private healthcare, because the profit motive doesn’t drive efficiency, it drives profiteering.
Healthcare is free for everyone in the UK. Taxpayer or not, rich or poor, you can have a much healthcare as you need at zero cost to you. Free. That’s what free means. It doesn’t mean no one is paying. It means the patient isn’t paying. Did you think I thought that hospitals grow on trees? Of course I know that the government is paying for it, that’s WHY the healthcare is free. No charge. Unlimited. Free.
Taxation isn’t a change on healthcare AT ALL. It’s a charge on earnings, and claiming that free healthcare isn’t free is entitled nonsense from higher rate taxpayers. They pay tax. They don’t pay healthcare. No one does, unless they go private, because the healthcare is what’s free.
I think you’re assuming their intent is to make it sound expensive and that it’s a right wing talking point, but they’ve already said in their comments that they agree with a publicly funded healthcare system and are actively for it. They’ve also said their reason for wanting to use another word besides “free” to describe it is to explicitly deflate the right wing talking point that it’s being called “free” when it’s really not. If you call it publicly funded or something else besides free that gets more at the essence of what the thing is, then the right wingers can’t use the point that it “isn’t free” against you and the public discourse around it will then have to shift.
Relentlessly parroting right wing talking points to stop right wingers making them is an implausible absurd and counterproductive strategy. I don’t buy it at all, sorry.
Do you think that because the supermarket is paying for my buy one get one free box of cereal, it isn’t free, or do you think for one minute that people who call it free don’t realise that they’re still making a profit?
We’re not all morons, and we don’t need anyone to say that taxpayers fund the government every time we like something they do, we’re not five and we do understand, but the one thing we do know is that you don’t pay for your healthcare, no matter how much you need or how often, no matter how little tax you’ve ever paid or ever will pay in your life. Healthcare is free in the UK. Free. No charge.