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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

> Nothing should be subsidized

There went universal healthcare in all nations that have it. If you think the yellow vests rioting in France over a gasoline tax (among other things) are bad, just wait until you see how Europe burns to the ground over that one. In the US, Social Security has no actual lockbox ("trust fund"), it's a fraud in terms of funding; without perpetual vast subsidies, Social Security would immediately begin to collapse. Medicaid would go away instantly as an entirely subsidized program. About half the US would lose health coverage. The 44 million people in the US receiving food benefits via SNAP would lose that.

The argument is always going to be over what should be subsidized, between conflicting factions. The number of people willing to see all subsidies eliminated is practically zero for political purposes.

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Those people wouldn't lose health coverage if they had enough value to afford it from their own labor. If they don't make enough to afford health care then who benefits from them being healthy/alive? I don't find the fact that they'll whine and burn things down a convincing reason to subsidize their lives. Eventually they'll burn out and without healthcare they'll stop being a problem.

You’re entitled to your opinion but maybe try to state it in a less inflammatory way.

You seem to have lived a privileged life if you cannot see the value in helping those who cannot afford it. The cost of healthcare in the US prices those people out. I hope you are never in a position to require help to get out of a bad situation. As someone who used the various programs to pull myself out of a bad situation to now making a very good living, I just can’t understand how people of your mindset don’t see that there are people like me who needed those programs to finally be able to return value to society.

If you think any social program should be subsidized, then you simply dont understand economics, youre just being fooled by politics. A politcal system that may have played to your advantage, but also disenfranchised a much greater number of people. Theres no point giving you an economics course here, But yes, in brief, the truth is everyone could afford healthcare, and true healthcare, not sub par programs, if we had a real economy. One that is not political in nature. I also come from an extremely impoverished background, and am too now doing well for myself. I work in a field that has shown me that we are literally being scammed from right under us. However know that i fully understand your incentive and i know it is a good one, you wish to give everyone equal opportunity, so i am not at all questioning youe motive as i know its genuine and well hearted, but also try to understand that you are unfortunately living in complete ignorance.

> You seem to have lived a privileged life if you cannot see the value in helping those who cannot afford it.

I was asking what that value is and afaict you are not answering it. But I'm sincerely asking, how does each individual tax payer benefit from you making a good living now such that they should have been forced to pay for you?

I was very much in a bad situation with my health while not having insurance. I couldn't get up off the floor for nearly a year due to spinal issues. I worked until I could afford to resolve the issue. Nobody else had any benefit from me surviving. Should they have had to pay for me to get surgery sooner?

I am returning in taxes much more than I ever received. It is a net gain for all who benefit from anything paid for by taxes. There are also gains in value being provided to the economy by spending. Also the money I’ve donated. And those are all monetary.

It doesn’t only help me, it helps my family and the people around me. So multiply this out to every person who turns their situation around and it’s much more than just a single person.

I’m sorry you had medical problems, but that year that you had lost productivity could’ve been quicker to recover with help. The view of “if I can do it, then so should they” is just a dark path to go down. Lack of compassion for others is no way to live.

My point was not that if I can do it so can they; I don't wish that on anybody. My question is what value tax payers realize from helping me? I suggest that there is none and if that's correct then they had no interest in helping. Forcing them to have paid for my care would have no benefit to anyone but me and the hospital that got paid.

My point is nobody should have to. You're making a mistake in looking at a single person or single entity and demanding to know why using that one data point a broad, sweeping, generalized policy is justified. It's not. Now if we step back and look at society as a whole the math is totally different.

Socialized medicine allows: (1) individuals to take bigger risks like starting a business without fearing they'd die in the process (2) afford basic care so they can go back into the workforce and continue producing value (3) treating preventable illnesses early meaning the costs are lower -- and they dont spread to more of the population (4) money isn't wasted on marketing, administration and a claims denial department lowering the total cost for everyone (5) reduction in absurd drug prices by using the collective bargaining power of state or federal entities to reduce costs for everyone (6) so many more things you could find out with some research. Not to mention you've totally disregarded the value of human life, decency and suffering. You've made a simultaneously cold, callous and invalid argument.

It's like a fire station. Why socialize fire protection? Well, fires spread.

Look it sucks what happened to you, and in a reasonable country, it wouldn't have. It's time to bring America up to the standard enjoyed by the rest of the world, not tear everyone else down to America's level.

Tyler, anyone who understands economics would know that in a true economy, you would not even have had to work at all to resolve the issue. The infinite and unfortunate truth, is that such a low amount of people actually understand anything about economics. They idiomatically and unquestionably believe that economics are to be conflated with politcs. Which is the root of the primary issue. A primary issue out of which a cyclic abundance of subsequent issues abound and are used in an ever revolving manner so as to keep what is known as the Establishment machine turning. However i have made peace in that i have recently accepted the vastly regrettable fact that the weakness and propensity for humanity as one to disillusion and misunderstand not just the most basic externalities but even those internalities surrounding our species will simply never expire.

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