Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should healthcare be free?
Position‹3 of 3: There is no such thing as free healthcare
Argument: Free healthcare is never "free"

There is no such thing as "free" healthcare. Scarce economic resources means someone or the collective society is paying for that resource (in this case, medical services) to be provided for the people.

The argument

A free health system would be one in which doctors and medical professionals provided treatment, and patients do not have to pay for treatment. The argument relies on the assumption that resources are scarce, so no health system is free because someone always has to pay for the treatment. This argument has the same sentiment as the popular phrase, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." The question of free healthcare centers on who should pay for the treatment. In nations with “free” healthcare, the government, or the collective social body, pays for it.

Context

There is no such thing as free healthcare. Someone is always footing the bill.

Premises

[P1]Medical treatment consumes real, scarce resources — doctors' labour, equipment, medicine — that someone must pay for. [P2] In systems described as "free," that cost does not disappear; it is simply shifted onto the government or the collective social body. [C] There is no such thing as free healthcare — the only real question is who pays for the treatment.

Counter-arguments

This argument is playing with semantics, not the substance of the topic. The meaning of the question "Should healthcare be free?" is commonly understood as "Should medical services be paid directly by those who use them, or should they be subsidized by the community at large?"

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] This "truly free" idea does not prevent the existence of subsidized healthcare services provided for free to those who benefit from them, a.k.a. "free healthcare".