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Comment by haltingthoughts | Hacker News Reader

It's basically not possible to do that without making those things cheaper somehow. Convert the entire US federal budget to UBI and it is around 10k per person. Healthcare alone per person is already 9k. Housing is maybe another 5k. And this is before those things get more expensive as people consume more of them.

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Other countries spend way less than that on healthcare (spending more like $3k per person) because they use more efficient systems.

Private healthcare is extremely expensive.

So that "somehow" already has a known solution.

Most UBI schemes have an increasing tax rate so that you gradually get less money and once you're past a certain threshold, say $60k per year, you are paying the same in additional taxes as you're getting in UBI payments.

The net result is that you don't need to fund UBI payments for nearly the entire population.

Ubi goes hand in hand with taxing the rich

The US federal budget is 3.8 Trillion. Using parent's numbers, you would need $5.3 Trillion to just cover healthcare + housing, assuming zero inflation.

What tax rate are you proposing will genenerate $5.3 Trillion off of taxing the rich?

Trivial. Tax the top 1 percent at least 75 percent for about 2 trillian or more once you close off loopholes, ban insurance companies altogether and make hospitals publish their prices, and require estimates for any work to be done, and you suddenly have a balanced budget.

> make hospitals publish their prices

They already do http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/Chargemaster/

> ban insurance companies

So lose the negotiating advantage and be forced to haggle on prices on a case-by-case basis?

Who haggles for anything besides cars in the us? Publish pricing and give estimates, shop around.

So to recap, the key to lowering prices in healthcare is (a) strip consumers of negotiating power (b) not try to haggle the prices down when providers consistently try to raise them?

Nobody is haggling the prices down. Prices are skyrocketing.

Insurance companies do. But your proposal seems to do away with them in order to lower the prices. I am trying to understand the mechanism.

The mechanism is open competition. Right now hospitals and clinics don't have to give you a price for their services, and you have to pay them whatever they ask for. It should work just like a mechanic or a lawyer, you are told the fee, you pay it, you get service. Don't like the price up front? Shop around.

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