I already pay for my health care, but police and fire are collective goods. Bad analogy.
Not quite.....I'm not sure what the phrase "collective goods" means but the police and fire dept. provides services...not "goods". The analogy would be if you used your own, private security service and you individually paid a contractor to put out each fire at your home or business instead. But you don't. The government collects taxes from you to pay for those services to be available to you when you and others need them....even the people who don't pay into them. Just like schooling. And while you do make some pretty bad points in some of these discussions, I doubt you're dumb enough to pay for your own health care. Who would be dumb enough to pay the full cost of each medical procedure, office visit or medication and treatment and not buy into insurance unless you're independently wealthy (not just rich)?? What you probably mean is you pay for your own insurance....if you in fact actually pay that on your own and it isn't part of some employer based plan.
That being the case you still pay a premium or periodic contribution to a pool (not much different from paying a tax) for a service to be covered in the event you need it.
Practically speaking, most people don't care or even (as GOPer Committee Chair Michael Steele demonstrated) know who their health insurance provider is as long as they're covered for reasonable procedures and treatments the doctor of your choice performs. As long as your doctor is paid, do you actually give a shit whether it's Aetna, Prudential, United Health Care, or Uncle Sam for that matter who's doing the paying??? Think about it, you probably don't.
As for public schools, I pay for that too even though I don't have kids. If I did have kids, depending on where I lived they would most likely go to a private school to get a good education, as most public schools suck, just like most everything the government runs...
"most likely" but because you don't have a crystal ball....not guaranteed. Just like most other Americans can't guarantee their circumstance would allow for them to provide their own, private schooling for their children.
araphrasing now:
