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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you, but GDP per capita isn't the correct measure here when the bottom 8% in the US has no health insurance compared to Sweden's 0%, which I have to assume because I didn't even find this measured anywhere due to universal healthcare.

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While Sweden has free health care, it does not completely include dental care. It's free until you turn 20, after that you pay out of your own pocket. This is to incentivize people to take care of their teeth, instead of not caring and then expecting free replacement of your teeth. One you're 20, you only get a very tiny deductible on your dental care which equates to almost the exactly the cost of a single basic check-up once a year.

It may not completely include dental, but poor teeth health shortens your life span and they cover that at least.

It's a systemic issue that can be solved with one unanimous vote in Congress, that will NEVER happen in the foreseeable future.

That's because Americans believe that poor people are poor because they just didn't care enough to be rich.

This might have been true 200 years ago, when there was a whole unexplored continent to exploit, but it's less true now.

Poor people are voting for policies that directly harm them because they don’t want other poor people and the “illegals” to benefit.

I think that's the same mentality, "yes I'm poor now, but I'll get the break I deserve soon enough, and I don't want all these undesirables to benefit when I do".

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