can i replace "affordable" with "free" please? these are human basic needs. just give it to me.
Okay, but unless healthcare workers, teachers, First Responders, construction workers, you, me, and everyone else is willing to work for free, it still has a cost, even if the government pays it. I agree that it should be a basic human right though...
EDIT:
Clarification: OP is asking for these things to be "free". Free is if I start handing out hamburgers on the street, no strings attached. We already pay for these services, we pay the most of any country in the world, and we get worse results.
Why? What does the one thing have to do with the other? There's always money for war, for bailing out banks, for lobbying... Thus there's enough money for basic human needs to be met without me working for nothing. It's a choice whom to give the money to.
But I agree to a certain point: if I don't need to pay rent, healthcare and education, I don't need to slave away in jobs that I don't want.
Affordable always seems to equate to government spending
In this case it is the government spending money from taxes paid by the people to improve the lives of the people who elected the government to govern the country to make it worth living in.
Yeah but the government is pretty bad about bleeding money. They also move slow and are a pain to deal with.
U.S. per-capita healthcare spending (including public and private as well as compulsory and voluntary spending) is higher than anywhere else in the world, with second-placed Germany trailing quite far behind.
On average, healthcare costs in the U.S. amounted up to $12,318 per person in 2021. In Germany that number stood at $7,383 - 40 percent lower. Yet, the U.S. lags behind other nations in several aspects such as life expectancy and health insurance coverage.
Instead of moving a few things around thinking it will make a lasting difference we need to move in a different direction. tbh Karl Marx really had something going on even if some of the people that read his stuff were complete assholes (cough cough Stalin).
It implies the State, through the government, represents the country and deals with suppliers to achieve universal healthcare, education and housing goals.
But the State should always (must) be the primary provider for healthcare and education, although not denying private initiative but instead heavily regulating it to ensure safety and quality.
Health and Education are services, not for profit enterprises.
On the housing front, many countries own and manage large numbers of affordable housing projects and to great success. This isn't to say the housing market doesn't require an heavy regulatory, as it does.
