It isn't just a failure of empathy, but creativity, to miss these points.
It's disingenuous (and insulting) to suggest that the reason poor people can't afford expensive health insurance is that they all have brand new iPhones, or some other unnecessary luxury.
It is a valid rebuttal of that argument that poor people don't all spend their money on brand new iPhones, or the like. One cannot rebut that rebuttal by repeating the original claim.
It isn't just a failure of intelligence, but cognitive discipline, to miss these points.
May you please source this assertion?
- a gift from a family member
- still the property of someone else, but they get to use it (possibly including a plan)
- a refurbished device
and so on.
It's a failure of intelligence to assume that just because someone has the use of something that they should not be able to afford that they are somehow making bad decisions.
You could easily argue that for some yuppie buying a car on credit but for a homeless person their phone pretty much is the only expensive thing they will own.
https://gigaom.com/2014/02/20/npd-confirms-it-apples-iphone-...