What Should Be Universal About Universal Healthcare?

So we create a universal healthcare program fully funded by the government with taxpayer dollars. Everyone is entitled to exactly the same healthcare for the asking, regardless of personal wealth or income, regardless of  ability to work or not, regardless of age. Healthcare nirvana.

So what healthcare should be provide universally by such a program ... costs be damned?

On-demand visits to a doctor by a 6-year old child with a common cold?

Quadruple heart bypass surgery for a 95-year old man with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) ?

What? Who decides what?

Birth control? On-demand abortion? Dental care? Eye care? Drugs? Cosmetic reconstructive surgery? Foot surgery? Indefinite life support for the "brain dead"? Elderly care? On-demand euthanasia?

What say does the individual have in decisions regarding their own healthcare? Can they decline it?

What should the government require of the individual? Yearly checkups?  No smoking? Limited alcohol consumption?  Weight loss?  Exercise regime?

When we can answer these and other questions, we might be ready to consider a universal healthcare program.     

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