Pay Your Own Way based on Choice

Jonathon Meer believes in individual risk and reward. Specifically, if you don’t get injected with a biological agent Covid immunization, then you should pay your own hospital bills. At the same time he believes others should get community-provided benefits for, well…, things he thinks are good. It seems he thinks people don’t deserve benefits simply based on what issue he agrees with or not.

He writes, “A full debate about whether people should be charged more when engaging in certain activities is not unreasonable if the costs of these kinds of choices are going to be spread to everyone.” Transporting Covid-untested illegal immigrants at government cost throughout the nation is surely spreading a problem to others. Can I opt out of supporting this and have them pay their own way?

Where is the full discussion about whether people should be financially on their own when engaging in the activity of child birth or abortions? Why is any (pool funded) insurance paying for a person to have an abortion? Minus specific and narrow exemptions, isn’t pregnancy a condition uniquely based on a woman’s choice? By Meer’s logic, then let her pay for it – or at least her and the other party. More ideologically, why is there a Federal mandate about this in order to preserve “individual choice” and “choosing for my own body” while others subsidize the cost? Why is one kind of choice anathema and the other supported?

Why is it called “health care” at all? It used to be “health insurance” to cover large costs levied on a person without expectation or causality. But if my health care premiums pay for predictable health care costs related to others’ lifestyle, why are you not out advocating that all should pay for their own lifestyle?

In fact, why do we have IRS Child Care Tax Credits, or even dependent deductions?! Wasn’t it your choice to have a child? So, if you have a child, then under Meer’s idea, it’s your job to fund all the necessary costs.

Be consistent! Do you support being independent and not insured and taking care of your own costs, or being taken care of by the culture around you? Which is it? Meer’s push to make people stand on their own decision is only because he doesn’t like the other person’s decisions in this specific case.

Let’s test consistency with one more question. If and when the immunization causes damage to an otherwise healthy person, will YOU pay the bill and indemnify the lost life because you forced them to take the immunization? You want to make others take responsibility for their decisions. As pointed out above, you mean that only when their choice disagrees with you. More than that, you won’t even take responsibility for your own decision to force others to obey you. Sheeshh… that’s double hypocrisy.

Socialism requires “the rich” to support “the poor”. Marx said, “From each according to ability, to each according to need”. If you believe each person should pay for their own choices, why do you support socialism at all?  Please strive for intellectual integrity. Are you even trying to be a good socialist, or just an authority and control monger?