haha , not at all ! Seriously think you ' re observation is a little a too brilliant <| sep |> What the fuck do polls have to do with actual votes ? You can ' t say taking online polls 8 times a day is the same as going to vote on election day . <| sep |> Although I appreciate there are nuances to every subject , education is a bit different . Because someone without kids will benefit from having other people ' s kids educated . I . e . making it to age 60 without having had kids , and living in a society that never educated its youth , means that you will likely live in a very dysfunctional society . And you can make some extension of the same argument for health care . But to a lesser degree . I would argue this is just as important for health care if you want an economically productive work force they need to be fit and healthy . There ' s also the shared benefits of having a powerful single negotiating body driving down the price of for example drugs my wife wanted a prescription refill the other day , and for complicated reasons ended up getting a private prescription , rather than an NHS prescription even privately the cost of the same drugs here was less than even her deductible would be in the US . The same is true for most of our private healthcare because it ' s hard to compete with free the cost of most private procedures is a tiny fraction of what it would be in the US even if you factor in the amount in taxes those people have also paid in to the NHS . However , the idea of an education voucher is gaining traction in the USA . Where if you have kids , but don ' t participate in the public system , the benefit you would have been using in the public system is given to you as a voucher to use elsewhere say , in a private system . This parallel , as I understand it , doesn ' t exist in the NHS . It doesn ' t exactly , although there are schemes for specific procedures in specific areas where due to limited NHS capacity the state will pay for you to have that procedure in a private hospital . The idea that the US is the only country in the world with freedom is tiresome I ' m married to an American , you guys legislate the minutiae of people ' s lives far more than we do take HOAs as a prime example would never be allowed to excercise that much power here . I never said the USA is the only country . Your statement is interesting . HOAs in the USA are entirely voluntary . The fact that this voluntary participation would never be allowed in the UK almost seems to indicate that such freedom to choose to participate in an HOA isn ' t allowed . A restriction on freedom . People in the USA quite routinely , perhaps even more than in other countries , choose to have their freedoms restricted through contractual obligations . The difference is that it is all voluntary . It ' s not mandated by a government . Are they really voluntary though ? They ' re only voluntary in the sense that you can decide not to move into a neighbourhood with one . You can ' t buy a house in a HOA area and then opt out . Such schemes would be allowed in the UK but only on an optin basis , you couldn ' t force someone to abide by their rules just because they own a house in a certain area .