While I subscribe to that same kind of thinking, others will not. They will see it as being forced to share the rewards of their hard work with others who, in their opinion, didn’t work as hard. Put another way, they see themselves as having taken on the responsibility of caring and providing for themselves, and policies like that would force them to also care for someone else who isn’t meeting that responsibility.

It’s a simple take, but not completely wrong. There will be people who will take advantage of others generosity, shirking the responsibility to care and provide for themselves, and keep demanding more. And there’s also the reality of government waste and corruption siphoning that “hard work” away.

It ignores the many realities out there, like how not everyone gets the same starting point in life and not everyone has the same abilities. But its simplicity is its strength. It explains things in a way that is easy to understand. I worked hard, they didn’t. I didn’t get handouts when I was struggling, so why should they.

This is why I think the way to convince these people to do the right thing is to reward those who do vaccinate with a tax credit or payout. It makes it fair across the board, and makes those who still choose not to vaccinate understand the cost of that choice. Or at least see that there is a cost to the choice.

A study, that could give a hard number of the average cost per patient, broken down by vaccinated and unvaccinated, could go a long way to proving the point. The recent measles outbreak would be a great place to start.