I don't know how things operate down there, John, but here most jurisdictions have school taxes built in to local taxes, and you pay them whether you have kids or not.

As regards health care I have two things to say:
First, I think you'd agree that *choosing* to not have health insurance is a just plain silly idea, no matter how stupid one might be. Accidents happen, illness suddenly appears out of nowhere, etc.
Secondly, we've had lots of people in the media who ask similar questions along with others to suggest that our health care system is a big rip-off. Some of those very same people (well, 2 come to mind, both very anti-healthcare in their columns) had a family member suddenly take seriously ill and they had the guts to say they were wrong in their prior position, saying that the quality of care was wonderful and that the problems would have bankrupted them if they'd had to pay for it out-of-pocket.

Looking at the U.S. system, you have spiralling costs resulting in less and less health insurance for more and more people and none for some too.
I've paid attention to certain health care costs there... kidney transplants. 2+ years ago 60 minutes (or maybe 20/20) had a segment where an uninsured person would have to plunk down $120,000. in advance and actual costs likely would run higher when all is added up.
I would be uninsurable down there. Yet here a kidney transplant cost me $12.00. Total cost, including significant after-care for 7 years and on-going. I do have to buy some very expensive drugs, but that's no different than down there.

We all buy insurances of different kinds and when we do we all hope we never need to use it. Some insurances are made mandatory (like car insurance in many jurisdictions, home insurance if you have a mortgage, etc). Here we make health insurance mandatory too and we let government do the administration.
You will be surprised no doubt to hear that "single payor" system, which is the general situation for socialized health insurance around the world, is far far more efficient on the administrative side of things than the U.S. system.

>Depends.
>
>What about the healthy couple with no kids? Why are they paying for what they don't use?
>
>>>I think I'd be pretty embarrassed as a Canadian liberal by what the gov't hasn't done with that amount of funds. What the heck are they doing with that money?
>>
>>Quality education and healthcare aren't cheap, but I think they are worth it.