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RE: Microplastics and the case for universal health care
This is a subject I feel passionately about, and I've been planning to write about it for a while now. I did mention it a couple of weeks ago in a general post about waste, but I want to take a more in-depth look at the issue, as it's a burgeoning environmental catastrophe. In the UK we have a plastic shopping bag tax, yet many of the goods we buy in the shops – especially in the supermarkets – are individually wrapped in plastic. And as you say, it's the producers who are mostly to blame. It's a crazy and distressing situation.
I'm not sure that universal healthcare is the answer. I think an increased sense of personal responsibility is one way forward.
While I agree with your sentiment, I find it hard for people to take personal responsibility for pollution from businesses that strenuously resist accountability for their effluvia. A small flat tax to fund universal health care is like no-fault insurance. No matter what happens, you cannot shift the burden of health care onto someone else because everyone shares the burden.
By getting everyone to pay, and everyone covered, we can install a sense of personal responsibility at both ends. At least, it seems that way to me.
I live in the UK and we have the NHS, which I wholeheartedly support. But I'm not sure if it instills much of a sense of personal responsibility.
The sense of personal responsibility doesn't come from the health care service, whether public or private. A sense of personal responsibility comes from connecting the behavior to the outcome.