Someone on another forum brought up the intriguing idea of how a healthcare system would work in Star Wars. Let’s just assume the system is for the Old Republic or New Republic. (Empire probably wouldn’t cover non-humans). I was thinking maybe universal healthcare. How could this system be created and what would it entail? I’m not great with economics.
How would a healthcare system in Star Wars work?
20 minutes ago, Leia Hourglass said:Someone on another forum brought up the intriguing idea of how a healthcare system would work in Star Wars. Let’s just assume the system is for the Old Republic or New Republic. (Empire probably wouldn’t cover non-humans). I was thinking maybe universal healthcare. How could this system be created and what would it entail? I’m not great with economics.
uhhhh why would you do this in gaming? Universal doesnt actually work. Which is why Countries like Sweden are moving away from it. But again why would you want to even care about this in a game?
from what we have seen this if it is a thing its a world per world deal
IE many worlds you pay for treatment yourself some your job pays and a small handful may be government funded
in many ways star wars is like the wild west the idea of the government helping is rare that's why they have bounty hunters and the like
Is abortion legal in Star Wars
🙄
Should I invest in some popcorn stock?
1 hour ago, Leia Hourglass said:Someone on another forum brought up the intriguing idea of how a healthcare system would work in Star Wars. Let’s just assume the system is for the Old Republic or New Republic. (Empire probably wouldn’t cover non-humans). I was thinking maybe universal healthcare. How could this system be created and what would it entail? I’m not great with economics.
There’s an episode of the Clone Wars where they mention the Republic has universal healthcare. Likely the Core worlds and Mid Rim worlds and other large population centers have universal healthcare. In the Outer Rim worlds probably not so much.
I doubt the Empire changed this in the Core Worlds, the Empire was all about nationalization. Totalitarian states need to placate the population to maintain loyalty. On resisting worlds, Alien governments and in places like the Corporate Sector not so much.
Canon material suggests that army personnel receive rationed medical care based on their individual importance to the Empire. So American VA style care, death panels etc.
1 hour ago, Leia Hourglass said:Someone on another forum brought up the intriguing idea of how a healthcare system would work in Star Wars. Let’s just assume the system is for the Old Republic or New Republic. (Empire probably wouldn’t cover non-humans). I was thinking maybe universal healthcare. How could this system be created and what would it entail? I’m not great with economics.
"universal healthcare"
and
"I'm not great with economics"
go hand-in-hand.
RPG-wise, each to their own is one way. You need healing? You have some credits? Varying levels of quality: street docs, back-alley hackers, high-end care, force-healing, etc... Do the healing jedi walk around like Jesus (giving it out for free)? Is it against the jedi code to refuse to heal or pass over people? Do the jedi have a med squad for vagrants? Jedi hospital? Jedi free-health clinic? Do they heal STD's? Do some jedi resent being used as come-one, come-all healers? Do you have to "know someone" to get healing?
Somewhat like in D&D (with "magic", i.e. The Force) you pay for it or are a recipient of benevolence and mercy.
Capitalistic: no credits, no healing. But then, where does this leave the jedi when they CAN heal, but chose not to at that level?
Like someone said above, healed based on your level of importance. Work for someone who can provide it. Otherwise, you're on your own.
9 minutes ago, DurosSpacer said:"universal healthcare" and "I'm not great with economics" go hand-in-hand.
It depends on how it’s run and for what reason. If it’s run like the American system no way, if it’s an efficient system without a profit motive it can work, droid doctors, economies of scale, lower bureaucratic overhead, publicly owned hospitals, preventative care, good nutrition in the population meaning less emergencies.
a good place to look is in the colonist book and see what they say about the doctor bet there is some info there (I lack that book)
as for force healers I don't think its common one force users are rare and force healing rarer most likely they heal as they see fit but not to the point they replace regular healthcare
also doing so in the time of the empire is really risky ii can only see it done to close friends
4 hours ago, Daeglan said:uhhhh why would you do this in gaming? Universal doesnt actually work. Which is why Countries like Sweden are moving away from it.
You need to check your sources, but until you do, I will politely pretend not to laugh so hard I cry.
It's just how we roll... here in Sweden.
1 hour ago, penpenpen said:
You need to check your sources, but until you do, I will politely pretend not to laugh so hard I cry.
It's just how we roll... here in Sweden.
So when you added back private insurance that wasnt backing away from socialism. Riiiight...
But then i find most people misuse socialism to mean anything the governmemt does. Which is incorrect.
And my sources were Swedish Economists...but what do they know? They only detailed the mess Sweden got itself into with socialism and how they moved away from it.
Edited by Daeglan3 hours ago, Daeglan said:So when you added back private insurance that wasnt backing away from socialism. Riiiight...
But then i find most people misuse socialism to mean anything the governmemt does. Which is incorrect.
And my sources were Swedish Economists...but what do they know? They only detailed the mess Sweden got itself into with socialism and how they moved away from it.
Ah, but we didnt just "add back" private healthcare.
"We" (And by that I mean the conservative government at the time), didn't just allow for private healthcare... they also, simultaneously, severely slashed funding for public healthcare whilst at the same time doling out massive subsidies to private healthcare.
So... it was a concerted attempt at dismantling the public healthcare while at the same time substantially promoting private healthcare.
Oh and as for your sources... most economists tend to be staunch capitalists and anti-socialists... so it's hardly surprising that they left out some details and just painted it out as "well the system sucked".
As for my sources?
Well... me being a Swede, but if that doesn't help, I've also got quite a few friends who work as politicians and healthcare providers. (both doctors and nurses).
But hey... what do they know about working healthcare compared to an economist, right?
What most people mistake about Sweden is that they think it's a dictatorship run by some socialists or something.
It's not. It's a democratic country largely built on Social Democrat values and politics, but there are other parties too, and whenever the conservative block gets into power, they tend to start dismantling everything that Social Democrats built, since they're of a completely different political view (usually Liberal or conservative capitalism).
And what have we learned from this exchange by laymen above? That socialism ≠ socialism, obviously. Pundit-induced opinions and ideological persuasions BE GONE! Moving on and back on non-real-world ideological impairments.
I would think the the Republic and New Republic had universal health care anywhere it could provide and sustain it - and gain from it. So, core worlds and mid rim perhaps - and selected poorer worlds, symbolic politics is a classic. Of course, it also depends on the membership world's political persuasions, wealth, and ideological panache.
The Empire would most likely provide something along those lines too (on core worlds and some other places), at least during the consolidation period, it's a good way to disappear people for whatever reason deemed necessary by the evil doers - as well as gaining the trust and gratefulness of a population.
Universal healthcare isn't really a thing anywhere; there is currently not a nation on Earth that meets the World Health Organisations standards for 'universal healthcare'. Social democracy is not socialism and public services are not socialism despite what certain publications and their ideological adherents (on both sides of the spectrum) would have you believe. Given that the Galactic Republic isn't really a government as we know it (it's really more of a more federalized UN until the Clone Wars where it starts centralizing like mad), I highly doubt that it gives free healthcare to all it's citizens mostly because I highly doubt that every sentient being inside Republic space was even documented since we know we are talking about many hundreds of trillions of beings in a galaxy where computer technology is somehow both more and less advanced than what we have available now. Healthcare is probably handled at a more local level, typically a planetary scale with mayhaps some of the larger, cohesive regions like the Atrisian Commonwealth handling it on the whole-nation scale.
Most likely the moderately to densely inhabited worlds (in populations of the millions to the billions) any healthcare system would probably be a mixed affair, the most effective (note: effective , not efficient ) system known to man. The government provides a basic safety net, with or without copayments per treatment, and you can pay for better treatment if you have the credits. In the highly urbanized ecumenopolis worlds, I'd assume as you go to the lower levels you'd get progressively worse care as the infrastructure decays and the supplies fail to make it down. In the opposite direction as you head towards the galactic outback the care gets more primitive. By the time you reach Wild Space, the clinics, if there are any at all, might be Wild West - alcohol as anesthetic, amputation without prosthetics and poorly sanitized conditions.
36 minutes ago, BipolarJuice said:Universal healthcare isn't really a thing anywhere; there is currently not a nation on Earth that meets the World Health Organisations standards for 'universal healthcare'. Social democracy is not socialism and public services are not socialism despite what certain publications and their ideological adherents (on both sides of the spectrum) would have you believe. Given that the Galactic Republic isn't really a government as we know it (it's really more of a more federalized UN until the Clone Wars where it starts centralizing like mad), I highly doubt that it gives free healthcare to all it's citizens mostly because I highly doubt that every sentient being inside Republic space was even documented since we know we are talking about many hundreds of trillions of beings in a galaxy where computer technology is somehow both more and less advanced than what we have available now. Healthcare is probably handled at a more local level, typically a planetary scale with mayhaps some of the larger, cohesive regions like the Atrisian Commonwealth handling it on the whole-nation scale.
Most likely the moderately to densely inhabited worlds (in populations of the millions to the billions) any healthcare system would probably be a mixed affair, the most effective (note: effective , not efficient ) system known to man. The government provides a basic safety net, with or without copayments per treatment, and you can pay for better treatment if you have the credits. In the highly urbanized ecumenopolis worlds, I'd assume as you go to the lower levels you'd get progressively worse care as the infrastructure decays and the supplies fail to make it down. In the opposite direction as you head towards the galactic outback the care gets more primitive. By the time you reach Wild Space, the clinics, if there are any at all, might be Wild West - alcohol as anesthetic, amputation without prosthetics and poorly sanitized conditions.
also the availability of medical droids really really changes the equation. As does bacta and kolto.Cyberlimbs asl make a big difference...
I don't know if it's Legends or nu!canon (or possibly my own personal headcanon), but I got the impression that during the Republic all newborns are tested for that dreaded M-word - if they were in the Republic. Which is one reason why no one had spotted Anakin's Force potential prior to QGJ and company turning up on Tatooine (as that planet is under Hutt influence, not the Republic's).
That kind of testing suggests at least some sort of basic universal healthcare system, as it's much easier to roll that kind of test in with all the rest of the vaccinations, etc. that babies and children get. And I'm pretty sure that vaccinations are considered important in the Republic (and possible other eras too). Think of all those planetary populations, and the massive amount of trade needed to keep the galactic economy moving.
17 minutes ago, Bellona said:That kind of testing suggests at least some sort of basic universal healthcare system, as it's much easier to roll that kind of test in with all the rest of the vaccinations, etc. that babies and children get.
Not necessarily. It can be mandatory to report it (example off the top of my head, it is mandatory to report signs of child abuse) without it being under "universal health care."
12 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:Not necessarily. It can be mandatory to report it (example off the top of my head, it is mandatory to report signs of child abuse) without it being under "universal health care."
It is also mandatory to report things like small pox. SO I could see this testing falling in the same way...
1 hour ago, Bellona said:I don't know if it's Legends or nu!canon (or possibly my own personal headcanon), but I got the impression that during the Republic all newborns are tested for that dreaded M-word - if they were in the Republic. Which is one reason why no one had spotted Anakin's Force potential prior to QGJ and company turning up on Tatooine (as that planet is under Hutt influence, not the Republic's).
The issue there again is scope. Even on Coruscant you'd have literally billions slipping through the cracks in the lower reaches of the galactic city and that's only one planet whereas the Core has a few dozen named ecumenopoli with probably hundreds of additional ones that just aren't mentioned in any source material.
22 minutes ago, BipolarJuice said:The issue there again is scope. Even on Coruscant you'd have literally billions slipping through the cracks in the lower reaches of the galactic city and that's only one planet whereas the Core has a few dozen named ecumenopoli with probably hundreds of additional ones that just aren't mentioned in any source material.
That's where we, again, run into the problem of Star Wars writers generally not being science fiction writers, and not possessing even a glimmer of a sense of scale.
I would think that healthcare is in theory provied for everyone in the republic since free health care is a net positive for any nation but as we see in movies the republic is horribly corrupt and slow to act leaving the health care system quite unequal from planet to planet but in theory yes you can get free health care
The empier migth also provide free health care for all.....humans or have some sort of humans first policy when it comes health care, it migth be more effective or maybe even more corrupt
@Daeglan There are a million other places where you can pontificate to your heart's content, have a little class.
If you look at the previous game systems, they all listed an actual cost for medical services, This tells me that no, there was no "universal Healthcare" in Star Wars, nor was there even Health Insurance. It was cash only .
1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:If you look at the previous game systems, they all listed an actual cost for medical services, This tells me that no, there was no "universal Healthcare" in Star Wars, nor was there even Health Insurance. It was cash only .
I mean, they were game systems .
I mostly agree, though. Highly unlikely that Star Wars has any sort of "universal healthcare."
I shall refrain from pontificating on the proper- or, more correctly, all the im proper systems of government for Star Wars, but suffice to say, big government is impractical to say the least.
2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:If you look at the previous game systems, they all listed an actual cost for medical services, This tells me that no, there was no "universal Healthcare" in Star Wars, nor was there even Health Insurance. It was cash only .
Game systems aren't representative of canon necessarily, although you could just hand wave this away as either 1) that represents the actual cost of the treatment, labor and supplies totaled or 2) off-worlders pay full price since they aren't covered under the planetary governments healthcare system - if it even has one. The Star Wars galaxy is beyond comprehension in just how large it actually is and you'll probably find everything from fully socialised medicine to completely private systems to total lack of medicine as you cross the galaxy.