Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjevans | Hacker News Reader

Things that could actually be done to make for a more level playing field:

    * 'Single Payer' healthcare (tax everyone for basic healthcare)
    * Allow all kinds of debt to be discharged via bankrupcy
    * Have the government complete as (several) providers in all 'basics'.

The last one includes (some of these are already utilities):

    * Water
    * Sewer
    * Power
    * Transport (of all kinds, including last mile data)
    * Housing / organizational locations
    * Education
    * Medicine

Maybe private businesses can be more efficient than a not-for-profit government owned (and run) organization; if so let them actually compete.

View on HN

> Allow all kinds of debt to be discharged via bankrupcy

Credit would dry up overnight and interest rates would go through the roof on many loans.

Also why would anyone ever offer a student loan under these conditions?

>'Single Payer' healthcare (tax everyone for basic healthcare)

We are about to have net neutrality repealed over the objection of everyone except ISPs basically. Medicare isn't even allowed to negotiate drug prices, but our govt run single payer system will definitely be immune from regulatory capture. Right?

Instead of this single payer fake solution I would much rather hear real solutions from the left. Such as, no medical service or prescription can cost more than the average price from a basket of oecd countries. If we could cut through all the bullshit and just implement that one idea it would solve most of our healthcare issues.

> why would anyone ever offer a student loan under these conditions?

Are you saying that it's not possible to offer profitable rates on student loans that could be forgiven in bankruptcy like other debts are? If so, how is that not saying the same thing as "to fund the education of the successful requires perpetual funding from the unsuccessful"?

I'm saying why would you extend a massive loan to someone who is broke, has no credit, and can immediately discharge the debt. They could and many of them would immediately discharge the entire balance of the loan upon graduation by declaring bankruptcy.

They don't offer 40k+ loans to people with no credit at any rate.

There are different ways to do that by redefining the way bankruptcy works. E.g. Personal bankruptcy could result in 2-3 years of handing over most of your income to the state (which distributes across the original loan providers), expect any major assets to be liquidated (e.g. Your house), before you're considered debt free.

If you just graduated from college with no money and debt how could you have a house? Also that is currently how bankruptcy works anyway.

>Personal bankruptcy could result in 2-3 years of handing over most of your income to the state (which distributes across the original loan providers)

That is even worse than how bankruptcy works right now for most debts. There already is loan forgiveness after so many years for student loans.

Also even if they did offer some faster path to discharging student debt the interest rate on the loans would go up to handle the increased loss from defaults. That would not really make the situation better either.

> If you just graduated from college with no money and debt

Require a guarantor

Then just don't get a student loan at all. Just get a regular loan.

> Credit would dry up overnight and interest rates would go through the roof on many loans.

That's a silly thing to say. Will the Moon fall down too?

> Also why would anyone ever offer a student loan under these conditions?

Probably profit. Don't you think? Isn't that usually why loans are made? You understand that this is a recent change to the law (1998) and prior to that, student loans still existed and worked fine?

Why would you extend a massive loan to someone who is broke, has no credit, and can immediately discharge the debt. They could and many of them would immediately discharge the entire balance of the loan upon graduation by declaring bankruptcy.

They don't offer standard 40k+ loans to people with no credit at any rate.

Also even if they did offer that the interest rate would be insane because you are dealing with so many defaults. That would not really make the situation better.

> Why would you extend a massive loan to someone who is broke, has no credit, and can immediately discharge the debt

Ask the people that offered student loans in 1997

Many is not the same as most. Most people would be perfectly happy to pay off their debt unless they were literally unable to.

Student loans wouldn't be required for an education since the government would be competing with private entities, at least for fields of training that the government felt were useful for society.

For medical care, no, I don't mean the current broken compromise and comparing the regulatory environment in other nations to our own is insanity. I meant what I said in the /government/ providing a market baseline. If we have to start out with massively expanding military medicine and educating doctors that want to serve in the military for a bit (and be paid normal wage for that) for no extra charge then that's where we go.

> I meant what I said in the /government/ providing a market baseline.

This is not a single payer system. I don't understand what you are saying.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com