If you are able to help them, and you refuse to do so unless they do something for you (i.e. labour to earn money to pay your fees) then it is absolutely coercive.
By that measure any salary a doctor demands, whether it's paid for by the patient or the state, is coercive. Or for that matter, any salary any person demands in exchange for work is coercive. I feel like it ceases to have a useful meaning when used in this way.
It's only coercive when we're talking about the means to survive. If you offer someone a choice between death or some action, you are coercing them to act.
And I don't think that "ceases to have a useful meaning". I think it just doesn't let you argue that your system is better based on absence of "coercion".
I don't believe for a second that you understand the word "coerce" to be limited only to situations of life and death.
Do you or do you not believe that doctors in the UK are coercing the government by demanding a fair salary in exchange for the lifesaving services they provide?
>I don't believe for a second that you understand the word "coerce" to be limited only to situations of life and death.
I don't think it's necessarily limited to that, but I do think all such situations are coercive. Whether someone is having a gun pointed at them, or being denied healthcare, they are being coerced. That said, I do think most coercion does ultimately amount to the threat of death or suffering, even if it becomes very indirect in practice.
>Do you or do you not believe that doctors in the UK are coercing the government by demanding a fair salary in exchange for the lifesaving services they provide?
Trying to evaluate the actions of individuals in a wider system is not very helpful. Are the doctors being coercive? Yes. But they're also being coerced in turn by the individuals they rely on for survival (i.e. the people they buy food from) so it's hard to ascribe blame. It's the system as a whole which is coercive.
And this is my point. Both market based healthcare and state provided healthcare rely on coercion to function, so you can't distinguish them morally on that basis.
The only hypothetical system I know of that would actually be free of coercion would by something like anarcho-communism, where people have free access to the means of survival, and it is produced by people's free choice to work for the benefit of others. But I'd guess you think such a system wouldn't work.
>And this is my point. Both market based healthcare and state provided healthcare rely on coercion to function, so you can't distinguish them morally on that basis.
Can you honestly not see the moral distinction between me intentionally shooting you with a gun and me not applying first aid after someone else has intentionally shot you with a gun?
