"Making the young pay for health care", Michael Gerson, Washington Post, 2009-11-03, claims that the young are footing the bill for the health care of the old.
I would not call this a conservative argument against health care, but a simplistic view of transactions. It reduces all transactions to a willing buyer and a willing seller with no side effects (externalities). Very few transactions fit this description.
Most transactions have ripple effects that move through a community and even through an entire society. If I trade a vehicle in for a newer vehicle, an unknown seller now has a buyer for an unwanted car and an unknown buyer has a vehicle that he or she can afford. If I buy a new vehicle, I have indirectly created jobs for those who build vehicles.
Michael Gerson implies that the young are getting a raw deal because they are paying for the health care of older people who get sick more often. But he ignores many major benefits the young get from older people. Who paid for the roads, the bridges, the public buildings, the schools, and on and on that the young enjoy today? It would be impossible for the young to pay for these because they didn't have the money to do so or weren't even born yet.
How often have you heard a senior grouse about paying taxes for schools because he or she doesn't have children in school? But if seniors and other adults don't pay for schools, how are young people going to get an education to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, and on and on to provide services for older people?
So many transactions are of the "pass it on" variety. Many people don't expect tit for tat for small courtesies. Rather than accepting payment for helping a stranger, they request that the helped person pass it on by helping somebody else another time.
This is the actual situation of inter-generational payments. The old pay for the education of the young; the young pay for the health care of the old.
Besides, taking care of the elderly sets an example for future generations when the young become the elderly. Child to parent: I'm going to treat you just like you treated Grandma.
