# Universal healthcare



## chimpburgers (May 17, 2016)

Is universal healthcare something that is even feasible and attainable in the United States? I'd like to hear from you on this topic. I think it's very well possible to have it here as long as the current healthcare system here in the US has a major reform and we get the big pharmaceutical companies out of it. It shouldn't be like Cuban healthcare though, it needs to be more akin to what they use in European countries. Either way, it's becoming a pressing concern as many people go bankrupt as a result of skyrocketing medical bills. I don't think Obamacare as it is adequate enough for that.


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## KatsuKitty (May 17, 2016)

When I read about government-managed healthcare facilities like the VA leaking overflowing feces through the ceiling downstairs, it doesn't fill me with much enthusiasm. Singapore has healthcare done right.


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## Gun Barrel City Texas (May 17, 2016)

It could work I think but the income taxes would have to go way up for everyone (even poorer people)


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## autisticdragonkin (May 17, 2016)

I think that government should vaccinate people (against their will) and otherwise treat diseases that affect others such as infectious diseases and mental illnesses that result in violence.

I see no reason for the government to pay for treatment of diseases which only harm the affected individual (and people who are invested in their health) such as cancer and the like.

I think that the only thing government should do is provision public goods (goods which benefit everyone and it is difficult to pay for them as a result), no redistribution of wealth should occur (possibly even including progressive taxation) and any attempt to redistribute wealth is a violation of the social contract and suitable rationale for revolution/coup


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## DZ 305 (May 17, 2016)

Everybody has the right to adequate healthcare. Period. It is essential to upholding human life and dignity. The fact we treat huge parts of the medical industry as a commodity first is a predictable cause of skyrocketing costs in basic procedures and medications. We don't necessarily need a nationalized healthcare system , but we do need to do something, and simply cutting red tape and letting the market handle it isn't a solution to providing priority to the poor.


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## JU 199 (May 17, 2016)

Universal healthcare is great and I would have sex with it.

Seriously though it's a sound concept with many benefits. Not to say there's no downsides but since the implementation of the NHS in the UK the population doesn't get bogged down with unpayable healthcare debt, many diseases have been reduced though initiatives within the service, (the list goes on)

That's not to say the system isn't in crisis (it is) but it worked very well with the right mindset and funding.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 17, 2016)

Legatus Lanius said:


> Everybody has the right to adequate healthcare. Period. It is essential to upholding human life and dignity. The fact we treat huge parts of the medical industry as a commodity first is a predictable cause of skyrocketing costs in basic procedures and medications. We don't necessarily need a nationalized healthcare system , but we do need to do something, and simply cutting red tape and letting the market handle it isn't a solution to providing priority to the poor.


You need to actually support these massive assertions that you are making. What makes it so that the rich should fulfill these "rights"? Is there some sort of metaphysical annihilation that will occur if these ideas are ignored? I totally think that only a minority benefits from privatized healthcare but why should they surrender this benefit for the majority when they will get nothing in return? Governments are not some sort of feature of the universe that just exists randomly. They exist because the people and all the people have agreed to follow their laws for mutual benefit and as soon as you make it so that anyone no longer benefits from governments then they have no reason to continue to follow them and if we have progressive taxation and universal healthcare (for illnesses without externalities) then it makes the rich no longer have a motive to follow the government.


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## DZ 305 (May 17, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> You need to actually support these massive assertions that you are making. What makes it so that the rich should fulfill these "rights"? Is there some sort of metaphysical annihilation that will occur if these ideas are ignored? I totally think that only a minority benefits from privatized healthcare but why should they surrender this benefit for the majority when they will get nothing in return? Governments are not some sort of feature of the universe that just exists randomly. They exist because the people and all the people have agreed to follow their laws for mutual benefit and as soon as you make it so that anyone no longer benefits from governments then they have no reason to continue to follow them and if we have progressive taxation and universal healthcare (for illnesses without externalities) then it makes the rich no longer have a motive to follow the government.


The wealthy benefits from a healthy population, as it translates into healthier and productive workers. You could argue that you shouldn't pay taxes to build roads  you won't use in states you never will never visit. The wealth that people are born into or earn with their talents is theirs for the purpose of stewardship. A society that doesn't help the least among them is destined to fail in the long run. "scienti et volenti non fit injuria"


> Is there some sort of metaphysical annihilation that will occur if these ideas are ignored?


Apart from the injustice of letting people suffer and die or go into poverty through no fault of their own, it is against the virtue of Justice. Anything that is contrary to a virtue shouldn't be encouraged.


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## Puppet Pal Clem (May 17, 2016)

There seem to be a number of universal healthcare systems working in a few first world countries.

If it can work, I don't see anything wrong with trying to create one.

My problem with social systems is that they destroy competition and consequently innovation.
How many of the advances in medicine in the first world are due to competitive and capitalistic systems like America?
Is there a way to balance a system that avoids such stagnation?
And how much does our system prop up others? Is their success a luxury afforded by our cost?
And then gray questions, where do we draw the line, when do we allow people to die?

If anything I'd say start with universal healthcare for children.


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## DZ 305 (May 17, 2016)

Puppet Pal Clem said:


> There seem to be a number of universal healthcare systems working in a few first world countries.
> 
> If it can work, I don't see anything wrong with trying to create one.
> 
> ...


Quite a lot of nations with universal health care have continued to innovate. The hip replacement surgery was pioneered in the 60's by John Charnley of the UK. Peter Mansfield came up with Echo-Planar Imaging in the 1970's. The EPI was what lead to the creation of the MRI. And the use of ultrasounds to diagnose people is almost as old as the NHS itself. If we really want to worry about innovation, we can cut the pork spending on stupid shit and fund more research in science and medicine.


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## Joan Nyan (May 17, 2016)

I'm against universal health care because I don't believe it's right for the government to take people's money and use it for something which only benefits some people rather than everyone. I'm not against my own money going to help others in the form of charity (which I do plan to give to once I'm independent and financially stable) but just because I'm okay with spending my money to help others doesn't mean everyone should be forced to.


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## The 25th Cyberman (May 17, 2016)

Jon-Kacho said:


> I'm against universal health care because I don't believe it's right for the government to take people's money and use it for something which only benefits some people rather than everyone. I'm not against my own money going to help others in the form of charity (which I do plan to give to once I'm independent and financially stable) but just because I'm okay with spending my money to help others doesn't mean everyone should be forced to.


Exactly who doesn't benefit from universal healthcare?


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## Joan Nyan (May 17, 2016)

The 25th Cyberman said:


> Exactly who doesn't benefit from universal healthcare?


People in good health who pay more into the system through taxes than they get out.


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## DZ 305 (May 17, 2016)

Jon-Kacho said:


> People in good health who pay more into the system through taxes than they get out.


You could argue we shouldn't have federal funds go to build roads because you won't ever use them, or even visit the state


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## Joan Nyan (May 17, 2016)

Legatus Lanius said:


> You could argue we shouldn't have federal funds go to build roads because you won't ever use them, or even visit the state


Yeah, I could. Why_ aren't _roads all state or locally funded? But now we're just getting off topic.


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## Wallace (May 17, 2016)

Ass Manager 3000 said:


> That's not to say the system isn't in crisis (it is) but it worked very well with the right mindset *and funding.*



There's the problem. We could have all kinds of social services here in the US, but the kneejerk mistrust of the government and taxes means they'll never be funded.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 17, 2016)

Universal healthcare is used to subsidize alcoholics and drug addicts and fatties by taking money away from healthy people and giving it to them to pay for their self imposed healthcare costs and thus gives them more money to buy drugs and alcohol


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## Joan Nyan (May 17, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Universal healthcare is used to subsidize alcoholics and drug addicts and fatties by taking money away from healthy people and giving it to them to pay for their self imposed healthcare costs and thus gives them more money to buy drugs and alcohol


Don't forget bug-chasers.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 17, 2016)

Jon-Kacho said:


> Don't forget bug-chasers.


I do think that government should pay for people with gender dysphoria to get psychiatric treatment for their illness so they don't mutilate their bodies and try to get others to do the same because not being a victim of recruitment is something that benefits everyone just like treating people who are prone to violence due to mental illness benefits everyone


Legatus Lanius said:


> The wealthy benefits from a healthy population, as it translates into healthier and productive workers


If they do then they should just directly pay health insurance for their workers and their families as well as potential workers. They should let the drug addicts and exceptional individuals die


Legatus Lanius said:


> Apart from the injustice of letting people suffer and die or go into poverty through no fault of their own, it is against the virtue of Justice. Anything that is contrary to a virtue shouldn't be encouraged.


Justice is not a virtue. Justice is a man made concept and following it is in denial of the virtue of prudence


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## Marvin (May 20, 2016)

Wallace said:


> There's the problem. We could have all kinds of social services here in the US, but the kneejerk mistrust of the government and taxes means they'll never be funded.


I don't think that's entirely fair. I think the extreme diversity of the US makes a good case to moderate federal level social services. A heavily urbanized east coast state is very different from, say, Nevada.

It would probably be good to have lots of social services operate on a state level basis. And then provide tax benefits to help develop poorer states.


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## Watcher (May 21, 2016)

I think there would have to be a big public push for it.

I don't think in this era of big pharmaceutical companies having such a stranglehold on the current political climate in the US that it would ever happen.


autisticdragonkin said:


> Universal healthcare is used to subsidize alcoholics and drug addicts and fatties by taking money away from healthy people and giving it to them to pay for their self imposed healthcare costs and thus gives them more money to buy drugs and alcohol



http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/
Universal healthcare covers more people for less money. The US spends more on healthcare than any other civilized country. You're literally paying more just for punishing undesirables in society. I'm 100% certain if you had a close relative who died of alcohol poisoning because they couldn't afford health insurance your first reaction wouldn't be "they deserved it".

For every anecdotal "fatty" or "alcoholic" you also have a person who doesn't need to spend 14 thousand dollars for a complex hand surgery. Or someone who doesn't need to go into debt for a pre-existing condition they had no control over or were even aware of. I've even seen a video about how expensive it can be to give birth in the US since hospitals won't actually quote you on a price.







autisticdragonkin said:


> They should let the drug addicts and exceptional individuals die


I'm sure your mother is very proud of you


autisticdragonkin said:


> they should just directly pay health insurance for their workers and their families as well as potential workers.


This harms small businesses significantly more than it does larger corporations. It makes them significantly less likely to employ more people if they have to pay significantly more for health insurance.


Jon-Kacho said:


> I'm against universal health care because I don't believe it's right for the government to take people's money and use it for something which only benefits some people rather than everyone. I'm not against my own money going to help others in the form of charity (which I do plan to give to once I'm independent and financially stable) but just because I'm okay with spending my money to help others doesn't mean everyone should be forced to.


Universal healthcare benefits everyone.

This same argument could be made toward building bridges. "Why should my money go toward building a bridge in some part of town I'm never going to cross?" You'll notice that building that bridge leads to less congestion and thus you drive faster to work. Or you'll notice less traffic accidents.

You can say the exact same thing about public schools additionally. "Why should I spend tax money on public schools when I take my kids to a private school?" Having public schools leads to more literate people which has directly lead to the society we live in today.

Universal healthcare covers more people for less money. Additionally, less people going into debt over medical expenses and spending less on healthcare overall is better for society. Which indirectly benefits everyone.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

[/QUOTE] 





Watcher said:


> I think there would have to be a big public push for it.


Who cares, we are not a democracy we are a social contract so there needs to be mutual agreement





Watcher said:


> I don't think in this era of big pharmaceutical companies having such a stranglehold on the current political climate in the US that it would ever happen.


 The pharmaceutical companies are corrupt and they are controlling the government to benefit themselves. This is not what I advocate as I am against government regulation of any sort aside from banning lying in a contract and making it so that all contracts should be explicitly agreed upon. I would not move to America because the Canadian system is better even though still undesireable





Watcher said:


> http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/
> 
> Universal healthcare covers more people for less money. The US spends more on healthcare than any other civilized country. You're literally paying more just for punishing undesirables in society. I'm 100% certain if you had a close relative who died of alcohol poisoning because they couldn't afford health insurance your first reaction wouldn't be "they deserved it".



That is good for a utilitarian but I am not a utilitarian. There are several ways to reduce costs that don’t involve universal healthcare. I would pay for my relative to get treatment because I care about my family and only my family



Watcher said:


> For every anecdotal "fatty" or "alcoholic" you also have a person who doesn't need to spend 14 thousand dollars for a complex hand surgery. Or someone who doesn't need to go into debt for a pre-existing condition they had no control over or were even aware of. I've even seen a video about how expensive it can be to give birth in the US since hospitals won't actually quote you on a price.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That is unethical business practice and effectively a form of extortion and should be illegal. Private healthcare would function with someone paying upfront for the treatment and if they are unable to pay they die

As far as the unlucky person I don't care about them because they are likely beyond the point that the marginal cost equals the marginal benefit



Watcher said:


> I'm sure your mother is very proud of you


She is 





Watcher said:


> This harms small businesses significantly more than it does larger corporations. It makes them significantly less likely to employ more people if they have to pay significantly more for health insurance.


 That is only when the government forces businesses to pay for it. I am not advocating it and just think that there are some cases in which it is in the interest of a business to give its employees health insurance.





Watcher said:


> Universal healthcare benefits everyone.


It does not benefit the rich who are killed by it 





Watcher said:


> This same argument could be made toward building bridges. "Why should my money go toward building a bridge in some part of town I'm never going to cross?" You'll notice that building that bridge leads to less congestion and thus you drive faster to work. Or you'll notice less traffic accidents.
> 
> 
> You can say the exact same thing about public schools additionally. "Why should I spend tax money on public schools when I take my kids to a private school?" Having public schools leads to more literate people which has directly lead to the society we live in today.


 I specifically said that I advocate a system that pays for illnesses with externalities but not ones without externalities so everything you said is invalid 





Watcher said:


> Universal healthcare covers more people for less money. Additionally, less people going into debt over medical expenses and spending less on healthcare overall is better for society. Which indirectly benefits everyone.



The only reason why the USA has such high healthcare costs is because their system still provides emergency room service automatically and their system promotes ER visits. If ER visits were only available after checking to see that the person has health insurance then it would be irrelevant.


The problem with your arguments is that you are not actually arguing against me but against the American healthcare system which I am not advocating. I think that public healthcare is superior to the American system but I am arguing in favour of a mixed system of multi payer public healthcare and private healthcare from benefit societies (not for profit insurance)


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## Watcher (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> That is good for a utilitarian but I am not a utilitarian. There are several ways to reduce costs that don’t involve universal healthcare. I would pay for my relative to get treatment because I care about my family and only my family


Not everyone has a family


> That is unethical business practice and effectively a form of extortion and should be illegal. Private healthcare would function with someone paying upfront for the treatment and if they are unable to pay they die


This means that being poor or working a low wage job is bad for your health literally. And leads to less desirable outcomes. Like I used the example of birth very specifically because if a person can't pay to give birth that can easily lead to the death of a child and themselves. Especially if they need a cesarean. This also has another effect where if a birth is criminally expensive they're more likely to attempt it themselves and harm the child. 

Another example. A parent can't pay for cancer treatment and dies, their children become wards of the state. Costing the state much more than the cancer treatment. Meaning you pay more regardless. Unless you're additionally claiming people who are wards of the state also deserve to die.


autisticdragonkin said:


> As far as the unlucky person I don't care about them because they are likely beyond the point that the marginal cost equals the marginal benefit


I don't believe a person who saves their entire life for things like a nest egg or a car should lose all of their savings because of bad luck or something that was completely out of their control. Especially when it's cheaper when the state pays for it.


> The only reason why the USA has such high healthcare costs is because their system still provides emergency room service automatically and their system promotes ER visits. If ER visits were only available after checking to see that the person has health insurance then it would be irrelevant.


So while a person is bleeding on the sidewalk you want a system where paramedics have to call ahead to see if it's worth saving someone before doing anything about it?


> The problem with your arguments is that you are not actually arguing against me but against the American healthcare system which I am not advocating. I think that public healthcare is superior to the American system but I am arguing in favour of a mixed system of multi payer public healthcare and private healthcare from benefit societies (not for profit insurance)


the benefit to socialized healthcare is it's very modular. In Canada for instance private healthcare systems exist (I even pay private healthcare here) for dental, cosmetic, psychiatric and other less emergency based medicines. You can choose what to privatize and what not to privatize. And there is an argument to be made over having certain systems made private leading to more innovation (cosmetic surgery is a good example, as is Dental). What I am saying is something that is life threatening should never be privatized.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

Watcher said:


> Not everyone has a family


Not everyone has someone who wants them alive


Watcher said:


> This means that being or working a low wage job is bad for your health literally. And leads to less desirable outcomes. Like I used the example of birth very specifically because if a person can't pay to give birth that can easily lead to the death of a child and themselves. Especially if they need a cesarean.


That is a very good reason why to not work a low wage job


Watcher said:


> Another example. A parent can't pay for cancer treatment and dies, their children become wards of the state. Costing the state much more than the cancer treatment. Meaning you pay more regardless. Unless you're additionally claiming people who are wards of the state also deserve to die.


That is exactly what I am claiming


Watcher said:


> I don't believe a person who saves their entire life for things like a nest egg or a car should lose all of their savings because of bad luck or something that was completely out of their control. Especially when it's cheaper when the state pays for it.


That is the reason for insurance. It is risk hedging where several people pool their risks together such that they have less of a chance to be affected by a significant event like that and can better plan their future


Watcher said:


> So while a person is bleeding on the sidewalk you want a system where paramedics have to call ahead to see if it's worth saving someone before doing anything about it?


This is why people should carry implanted ID chips with them at all times


Watcher said:


> the benefit to socialized healthcare is it's very modular. In Canada for instance private healthcare systems exist (I even pay private healthcare here) for dental, cosmetic, psychiatric and other less emergency based medicines. You can choose what to privatize and what not to privatize. And there is an argument to be made over having certain systems made private leading to more innovation (cosmetic surgery is a good example, as is Dental). What I am saying is something that is life threatening should never be privatized.


And I say that only ones with externalities should be done because those are the only ones which fulfill the role of government which is only to provision public goods and defend property rights and enforce contracts


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## Watcher (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> This is why people should carry implanted ID chips with them at all times


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> That is a very good reason why to not work a low wage job


I do consider it a choice and there are benefits to choosing a low wage job


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## Watcher (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I do consider it a choice and there are benefits to choosing a low wage job


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

Watcher said:


> View attachment 96255


What are you trying to say with that post


autisticdragonkin said:


> I do consider it a choice and there are benefits to choosing a low wage job


They are often less risky (at least at first) and they have earlier payouts as well as being less demanding


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## Pikimon (May 21, 2016)

Low paying jobs are the definition of risky. In terms of safety, practically all low-paying jobs are menial labor jobs that are high in health risks (coal mining, construction, domestic service) and low in benefits. In terms of being "less demanding" sure its less demanding mentally (in some aspects) but its typically more demanding physically and most people in this line of work all suffer from extreme backpain and physical trauma. 

There is a very good reason why people move away from agricultural and menial work and push their children to go into higher education: *BECAUSE LOW PAYING JOBS SUCK*

No one "chooses" to go into a low paying job, they settle into it in order not to starve and to provide for themselves and their family.


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## CWCissey (May 21, 2016)

As a Britfag, I like universal healthcare. The NHS isn't perfect, but it's better than being the pharmaceutical companies' bitch. Although I do like the choice of a private healthcare company such as BUPA being available if you so choose.


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## IwegalBadnik (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Not everyone has someone who wants them alive



If something like this were in place I imagine gold diggers would have considerably more success. Those types often have a vested interest in their partner being dead.


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## Shokew (May 21, 2016)

America needs REAL Universal Healthcare for all its citizens. I don't see that happening when the corporations (Big Pharma) are in control of everything. The only way I see America getting actual Universal Healthcare is when people rise up & organize (hopefully, without too much violence...) against these corporations preventing us from having it - that can't (better yet, won't) happen fast enough, sadly, due to how no one trusts government nor likes to pay taxes into something that's actually useful.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> Low paying jobs are the definition of risky. In terms of safety, practically all low-paying jobs are menial labor jobs that are high in health risks (coal mining, construction, domestic service) and low in benefits.


I was talking about the risk that you take going into university with the quite large chance that you will be unemployed afterwards and thus have wasted 4+ years of your life. In comparison there isn't such a risk in those jobs and every year of your life reliably gives you a payout. For people who don't want such risks they can take those jobs instead. There is a much greater chance of getting no payout from a university degree than getting your finger chopped off in an industrial accident especially in the short term.


Pikimon said:


> In terms of being "less demanding" sure its less demanding mentally (in some aspects) but its typically more demanding physically and most people in this line of work all suffer from extreme backpain and physical trauma.


What I meant by less demanding is that there are less barriers to entry. If you have a criminal record it doesn't affect your chances of getting the job nearly as much for example. Additionally you get more free time and can use it to do other stuff as opposed to needing to spend 90 hour work weeks performing your job.


Pikimon said:


> There is a very good reason why people move away from agricultural and menial work and push their children to go into higher education: *BECAUSE LOW PAYING JOBS SUCK*


I think that higher education although  potentially valuable is essentially a ponzi scheme right now and many people are entering into the market irrationally. It is like subprime mortgages, assuming your house price wasn't ridiculously inflated when you bought it you could still have gained from getting a mortgage if you could reliably pay it off but if you got a ninja loan then it was a terrible idea to enter the market. I would much rather have low income risks than high income risks because they are easily insured and not very likely to happen as opposed to high income risks (they have a worse effect but their likelihood cancels them out)


Pikimon said:


> No one "chooses" to go into a low paying job, they settle into it in order not to starve and to provide for themselves and their family.


You just gave extremely good reasons to choose low paying jobs. If you have an immediate need for money they are far better


IwegalBadnik said:


> If something like this were in place I imagine gold diggers would have considerably more success. Those types often have a vested interest in their partner being dead.


You realize that people can buy their own health insurance instead of having their family members buy it


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## Phil Ken Sebben (May 21, 2016)

I don't see how a healthy populace is anything but a good thing for everybody. Every first world country out there has universal healthcare for it's populations _except_ the United States. And every single country with it doesn't want to change this. 

Yes it means more taxes but it also means that people aren't going to lose their homes and nobody needs to fear going to the doctor because they can't afford it.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

Phil Ken Sebben said:


> I don't see how a healthy populace is anything but a good thing for everybody. Every first world country out there has universal healthcare for it's populations _except_ the United States. And every single country with it doesn't want to change this.
> 
> Yes it means more taxes but it also means that people aren't going to lose their homes and nobody needs to fear going to the doctor because they can't afford it.


It is not a good thing because it stops people from being able to work to be healthier than other people. If they want other people to be healthy then they should do it by their own will as opposed to being forced to with the threat of violence


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## Sallet Lad Jim (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> It is not a good thing because it stops people from being able to work to be healthier than other people.



Most health care systems that include universal healthcare provide benefits to those willing to pay more. It's not a 'everyone has equal medical aid', it's, 'everyone has access to basic medical aid, and if they pay, they can get stuff that's even better'.



autisticdragonkin said:


> If they want other people to be healthy then they should do it by their own will as opposed to being forced to with the threat of violence



I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about here.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

Sallet Lad Jim said:


> Most health care systems that include universal healthcare provide benefits to those willing to pay more. It's not a 'everyone has equal medical aid', it's, 'everyone has access to basic medical aid, and if they pay, they can get stuff that's even better'.


That is exactly what I am advocating. I just think that it shouldn't include certain types of ER visits


Sallet Lad Jim said:


> I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about here.


Democracy is violence where the rich are forced to submit to collective will via violence or the threat of violence


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## YoloSwaggins (May 21, 2016)

I'm a britfag and the NHS is one of the best things about the UK. like with all welfare programs people game the system but you have to remember for every druggie going into A and E for drugs there is quite a lot more people get the extra care needed. disabled people aren't rejected for the expensive operations/medicines and other stuff they require and it means a lot more are able to hold down jobs because they have the support they need and put back into the system via taxes. 

yes there is issues to do with universal health care, as well as the doctor strikes there is a shortage of beds in hospitals and the mental health care units are woefully inadequate for children and young adults. the upside of it all though is the thousands of people that owe the NHS their lives because of the quick response of paramedics and the trauma teams and all of it's free for every citizen of the United Kingdom no matter the problem. that in my book is one of the most worthy welfare systems in the world, it doesn't discriminate or judge it just keeps doing its job.


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## Vitriol (May 21, 2016)

I think its worth pointing out there are various systems of universal healthcare and a system that makes minimal private health insurance a legal requirement and subsidises the poorest like in the Netherlands is very different to state run health systems paid for with revenue like the UK.


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## Pikimon (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I was talking about the risk that you take going into university with the quite large chance that you will be unemployed afterwards and thus have wasted 4+ years of your life. In comparison there isn't such a risk in those jobs and every year of your life reliably gives you a payout. For people who don't want such risks they can take those jobs instead. There is a much greater chance of getting no payout from a university degree than getting your finger chopped off in an industrial accident especially in the short term.



You say that, but getting a university degree (doesn't matter which) still on average guarantees a job and a higher salary than a person without a higher education degree.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77

From the article:



> For young adults ages 25-34 who worked full time, year round, higher educational attainment was associated with higher median earnings; this pattern was consistent for 2000, 2003, and 2005 through 2013. For example, in 2013 median earnings for young adults with a bachelor's degree were $48,500, compared with $23,900 for those without a high school credential, $30,000 for those with a high school credential, and $37,500 for those with an associate's degree.
> 
> In other words, young adults with a bachelor's degree earned more than twice as much as those without a high school credential (103 percent more), 62 percent more than young adult high school completers, and 29 percent more than associate's degree holders.
> 
> Additionally, in 2013 median earnings for young adults with a master's or higher degree were $59,600, some 23 percent more than median earnings for young adults with a bachelor's degree. This pattern of higher earnings associated with higher levels of educational attainment also held for both males and females and across racial/ ethnic groups (White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian).



In comparison people without a University degree on average have severely limited employment opportunities and often have a pay cap on how high they can be paid because the sad fact about low-paying jobs is that _every person in a menial position by definition is replaceable._ These are jobs that have no benefits, no healthcare, and no chance to move up in life. In comparison the kind of jobs that exist with a University degree on average are more likely to have benefits and at least the opportunity to move up in salary and career.

Issues exist with the University system sure, but these issues are primarily because of needless monetization that exists to exploit students.


----------



## Ariel (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Universal healthcare is used to subsidize alcoholics and drug addicts and fatties by taking money away from healthy people and giving it to them to pay for their self imposed healthcare costs and thus gives them more money to buy drugs and alcohol


You can suffer from heart problems even if you are healthy and slim.


----------



## Phil Ken Sebben (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> It is not a good thing because it stops people from being able to work to be healthier than other people.


So really this is more of a, "fuck you and stop being so fat because I don't want to pay for you". Instead of a, "you contracted cancer because of a genetic reason and chemotherapy costs are going to be $100,000 a year. How do you intend to pay?" kind of thing?

You do understand that not everybody that needs medical help is there because of something they themselves caused either deliberately or accidentally. And don't give me that reason that "the vast majority of them are" because the vast majority of ER calls have nothing to do with that unless you have some numbers to prove your point?



> If they want other people to be healthy then they should do it by their own will as opposed to being forced to with the threat of violence


You're not rich. You'll probably never be rich. So why worry about what some fat cat who makes billions a year thinks of this? This is still a democracy, at least in theory, and the majority of people want healthcare whether you like it or not. So suck it up and deal with it.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

Phil Ken Sebben said:


> So really this is more of a, "fuck you and stop being so fat because I don't want to pay for you". Instead of a, "you contracted cancer because of a genetic reason and chemotherapy costs are going to be $100,000 a year. How do you intend to pay?" kind of thing?
> 
> You do understand that not everybody that needs medical help is there because of something they themselves caused either deliberately or accidentally. And don't give me that reason that "the vast majority of them are" because the vast majority of ER calls have nothing to do with that unless you have some numbers to prove your point?
> 
> ...


I am not saying that everyone who needs healthcare needs it for a reason that is their fault. What I am saying is that the solution to random risks is insurance (not modern insurance but user owned not for profit insurance) not government intervention, I advocate a new type of insurance that does entirely what a welfare system does except for that it is voluntary because it is not a public good and as a result is not the role of government.


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## Kazami Yuuka (May 21, 2016)

A stricter regulation on hospitals would actually solve a good bit of problems (quasi-universal).


Spoiler: The Logic



Remember before Reagan when airlines literally couldn't charge below a certain amount for tickets? That was good, because it forced airlines to compete on quality of service (which was excellent out of necessity), rather than price. Reagan's deregulation of airlines is what fucked us and lead to airlines like Spirit. So I'm going to extend that to hospitals


So this leads me to:

Abolition of health insurance
Mandatory minimum billing for all hospital visits as well as procedures (similar to how GTA charges you $5000 every time you go)
Those who can't afford it will need to submit billing waivers for each stay and procedure
Those wealthy enough have to pony up the cash

Cap on billing for all hospital visits and procedures
While seemingly contradictory, caps on billing will help eliminate hospitals attempting to overcharge for the purposes of extracting money out of insurance (which would be replaced by the gov)

Surcharges on preventable disease (e.g. obesity-linked arteriosclerosis) as well as increased charges for unhealthy lifestyles (in order to compensate for frequent future hospital visits, it's purpose is similar to interest)
I'm stopping here, because it's decent and stupid at the same time. Anyone want to pitch in on this?


----------



## Phil Ken Sebben (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I am not saying that everyone who needs healthcare needs it for a reason that is their fault. What I am saying is that the solution to random risks is insurance (not modern insurance but user owned not for profit insurance) not government intervention, I advocate a new type of insurance that does entirely what a welfare system does except for that it is voluntary because it is not a public good and as a result is not the role of government.


Gotcha. You're effectively saying that you don't want to pay for another person's healthcare. 

And I'm sure you also have a problem paying for another person's roads, fire department, public schools, police department, the armed forces, tax cuts for the rich and just about every single thing your taxes go towards paying that you don't benefit directly from. Here's a newsflash for you, you live in a country where these things are needed whether you like it or not. Well, tax cuts for the rich don't help anybody but the rich but that's something for another time. You don't get to pick and choose what your tax dollars pay for.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 21, 2016)

Phil Ken Sebben said:


> Gotcha. You're effectively saying that you don't want to pay for another person's healthcare.
> 
> And I'm sure you also have a problem paying for another person's roads, fire department, public schools, police department, the armed forces, tax cuts for the rich and just about every single thing your taxes go towards paying that you don't benefit directly from. Here's a newsflash for you, you live in a country where these things are needed whether you like it or not. Well, tax cuts for the rich don't help anybody but the rich but that's something for another time. You don't get to pick and choose what your tax dollars pay for.


What I am saying is that only public goods are to be provided by the government. All of those things with the exception of public schools are public goods so a government needs to exist in order to pay for them. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good
by contrast public schools and public healthcare are both rival and excludable (although vaccinations and some types of ER visits are non excludable and thus are public goods that should be provided by government)


Kazami Yuuka said:


> A stricter regulation on hospitals would actually solve a good bit of problems (quasi-universal).
> 
> 
> Spoiler: The Logic
> ...


I think that such a system is not going to be one that is productive because a complete abolition of health insurance wouldn't work because it would make many unable to pay.

I propose a system in which government just provides non rival health goods (treating infectious diseases and mental illnesses likely to cause people to harm others) but rival goods would be provided privately but there would be price regulations as well as a removal of barriers to entry in order to drive down prices (quality control will occur through a different mechanism not related to licenses). There would be insurance but it would be cooperatives that provide it not for profit corporations (as in insurance would be literally a bunch of people coming together and agreeing to pay each others medical bills collectively with the conditions that they get the cheapest viable healthcare and that they try to live healthily)


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## Vitriol (May 22, 2016)

Kazami Yuuka said:


> A stricter regulation on hospitals would actually solve a good bit of problems (quasi-universal).
> 
> 
> Spoiler: The Logic
> ...


This system is used in parts of africa. In practice it struggles to raise enough money to be financially viable without paying nurses next to nothing and drs a teachers salary.



autisticdragonkin said:


> All of those things with the exception of public schools are public goods so a government needs to exist in order to pay for them.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good


When the nhs was brought in it was because of the 'public good' as the system you are argueing for, which was in place in the uk before had left the working classes too ridden with malnutrition and disease to make as effective soldiers as were needed. The problem was first identified after difficulties replacing losses in the boer war but it wasnt until the near disaster of ww2 that anything was done about it.

Now that isnt to say the nhs is without its drawbacks- its a massively expensive monolith which suffers from government meddling. If one is a staunch individualist then it is an ideological horror. That said as i mentioned elsewhere other countries have universal healthcare while not nationalising the industry via making health insurance mandatory and the state covering the poorest.


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## Joan Nyan (May 22, 2016)

Phil Ken Sebben said:


> You're not rich. You'll probably never be rich. So why worry about what some fat cat who makes billions a year thinks of this?


It's ridiculous to imply that you can't care about a group of people you aren't a part of.


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## Phil Ken Sebben (May 22, 2016)

Jon-Kacho said:


> It's ridiculous to imply that you can't care about a group of people you aren't a part of.


And it's ridiculous to say that the rich are put up and burdened with personally paying for the health care of poor people. But @autisticdragonkin said something along those lines.



			
				autisticdragonkin said:
			
		

> Democracy is violence where the rich are forced to submit to collective will via violence or the threat of violence


This was in reference to an earlier line:


			
				autisticdragonkin said:
			
		

> If they want other people to be healthy then they should do it by their own will as opposed to being forced to with the threat of violence



That was all I was responding to. Personally I say fuck the rich. They don't pay their fair share of taxes and in effect control the government through political grants. But that's another thing for another time.


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## AnOminous (May 22, 2016)

Vitriol said:


> Now that isnt to say the nhs is without its drawbacks- its a massively expensive monolith which suffers from government meddling. If one is a staunch individualist then it is an ideological horror. That said as i mentioned elsewhere other countries have universal healthcare while not nationalising the industry via making health insurance mandatory and the state covering the poorest.



These "staunch individualists" should get the fuck out of the country and provide their own security and national defense, then.  Clearly they have better ideas about it than any currently existing government and we can look forward to their new nation becoming a shining beacon of liberty in no time at all.

Snap snap, get to it, individualists.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 22, 2016)

Phil Ken Sebben said:


> They don't pay their fair share of taxes.


They actually pay far more than their fair share of taxes which would be a regressive tax because the only things present in the social contract are public goods which only need a small amount paid and constitute a small minority of federal spending (municipal spending is a different thing)

In theory a head tax would be the best option where each person pays a few thousand dollars to the government for being a citizen and that's it but in practice probably a regressive tax would be better (taxation would be performed by the following formula T=clnI with T being the amount of tax you pay, c being a constant that is adjusted by the government to account for revenue needs, and I being income)

Everyone should pay a relatively equal amount for government services and the rich pay way more but I am OK with them paying slightly more for the practical purposes of allowing the government to run

If they explicitly entered into a contract binding their bloodline to progressive taxation in exchange for the creation of an exclusive nation state which would be best for all citizens and not allow immigrants in (at least without them paying a massive headtax in order to compensate for having not been subject to progressive taxation for the past few centuries, maybe a million dollars being generous to the immigrants) then I would think more positively of progressive taxation but they would have needed to have explicitly agreed upon the rates that they bound their bloodlines to


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## AnOminous (May 22, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> If they explicitly entered into a contract binding their bloodline to progressive taxation in exchange for the creation of an exclusive nation state which would be best for all citizens and not allow immigrants in (at least without them paying a massive headtax in order to compensate for having not been subject to progressive taxation for the past few centuries, maybe a million dollars being generous to the immigrants) then I would think more positively of progressive taxation but they would have needed to have explicitly agreed upon the rates that they bound their bloodlines to



I have only one head and one desk.


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## Ruin (May 22, 2016)

The problem is most countries with successful universal healthcare programs have 70+% tax rates and very low unemployment. The United States has a lot of political pressure to keep taxes as low as possible as well as a massive welfare/underclass. Any universal healthcare program would quickly collapse into bankruptcy unless we reformed our entire society.



> If they explicitly entered into a contract binding their bloodline to progressive taxation in exchange for the creation of an exclusive nation state which would be best for all citizens and not allow immigrants in (at least without them paying a massive headtax in order to compensate for having not been subject to progressive taxation for the past few centuries, maybe a million dollars being generous to the immigrants) then I would think more positively of progressive taxation but they would have needed to have explicitly agreed upon the rates that they bound their bloodlines to



This may very well be the dumbest thing I've read all month and I read Breitbart.


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## DZ 305 (May 22, 2016)

AnOminous said:


> I have only one head and one desk.


@autisticdragonkin has been reading Rousseau and thinks butchering the idea of social contract makes him sound smart. It doesn't.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 22, 2016)

Legatus Lanius said:


> @autisticdragonkin has been reading Rousseau and thinks butchering the idea of social contract makes him sound smart. It doesn't.


I am not trying to sound smart. I am trying to be right.

What is the problem with this version of contract theory?


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## Ruin (May 22, 2016)

> What is the problem with this version of contract theory?



Because it's the antithesis of not only human nature but also the social constructs of every major civilization since ancient Greece?


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## autisticdragonkin (May 22, 2016)

Ruin said:


> Because it's the antithesis of not only human nature but also the social constructs of every major civilization since ancient Greece?


What I am promoting is pretty much just standard aristocratic republicanism and thus is very similar to the Roman Republic, the Polish commonwealth, and pre Jacksonian America and to a lesser extent monarchism in general (although I don't advocate a monarch) I only differ in that I acknowledge that this is not socially optimal


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## DZ 305 (May 22, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> What I am promoting is pretty much just standard aristocratic republicanism and thus is very similar to the Roman Republic, the Polish commonwealth, and pre Jacksonian America and to a lesser extent monarchism in general (although I don't advocate a monarch) I only differ in that I acknowledge that this is not socially optimal


Late 18th century France is proof that aristocracy is a terrible idea. In fact, all your examples ended terribly for most parties


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## autisticdragonkin (May 22, 2016)

Legatus Lanius said:


> Late 18th century France is proof that aristocracy is a terrible idea. In fact, all your examples ended terribly for most parties


I did not give the bourbons as an example because they were more inegalitarian than I am advocating. I completely acknowledge that what I advocate is going to make most people worse off but I think with the advent of modern information technology revolution will be impossible and an organic collapse will also be impossible as long as there is no attempt to colonize other planets in the immediate future. 

I think that modern technology makes life near zero sum now. My point is that the way I am thinking is far from new and we cannot justify an idea of social progress


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## Phil Ken Sebben (May 22, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> They actually pay far more than their fair share of taxes which would be a regressive tax because the only things present in the social contract are public goods which only need a small amount paid and constitute a small minority of federal spending (municipal spending is a different thing)


You keep going on about a "social contract" but this is not applicable here no matter how much you want it to be. It's a philosophical theory which a lot of Libertarians seem to want but it's not something that is currently in effect. If it is, I'd love you to point out to me where it's written into our constitution. Until then, it's a pipe dream and has no validity so stop bringing it up.

Secondly, the rich do _not_ pay their fair share. They pay a lot of money but it's not proportionally higher than most of the middle class in part due to things like loopholes and the like. I'm sure you've heard of Warren Buffet? One of the wealthiest Americans and possibly one of the most philanthropic. He revealed that he only paid 17.4% in income tax. His staff on the other hand were paying somewhere around 23%. Now 23% of let's say $75,000 is going to be lower than 17.4% of one million or whatever he gets paid in a year but we're talking percentages here. That 23% is a lot more onerous than the 17.4% even if the total amount being paid on the 17.4% is going to be higher. And the billionaire is going to have more money left over at the end of the year than the employee _even though he's paying a higher amount_.

But with this, you're either trolling hard or really don't get it. 





> If they explicitly entered into a contract binding their bloodline to progressive taxation in exchange for the creation of an exclusive nation state which would be best for all citizens and not allow immigrants in (at least without them paying a massive headtax in order to compensate for having not been subject to progressive taxation for the past few centuries, maybe a million dollars being generous to the immigrants) then I would think more positively of progressive taxation but they would have needed to have explicitly agreed upon the rates that they bound their bloodlines to


Are you serious or just trolling?


----------



## autisticdragonkin (May 22, 2016)

Phil Ken Sebben said:


> You keep going on about a "social contract" but this is not applicable here no matter how much you want it to be. It's a philosophical theory which a lot of Libertarians seem to want but it's not something that is currently in effect. If it is, I'd love you to point out to me where it's written into our constitution. Until then, it's a pipe dream and has no validity so stop bringing it up.


I do not believe that there actually was an explicit social contract ever but I do believe that there was an implicit one that occured in the 1700s and has been broken. I do not consider modern states legitimate because there wasn't an explicit social contract unaniously agreed upon but I consider them to be less illegitimate when they act as though there was a social contract through behaviours such as very strict rule of law and policies that benefit descendants from original citizens over immigrants or descendants of immigrants and I consider redistribution of wealth to be a violation of this very strict rule of law.


Phil Ken Sebben said:


> Secondly, the rich do _not_ pay their fair share. They pay a lot of money but it's not proportionally higher than most of the middle class in part due to things like loopholes and the like. I'm sure you've heard of Warren Buffet? One of the wealthiest Americans and possibly one of the most philanthropic. He revealed that he only paid 17.4% in income tax. His staff on the other hand were paying somewhere around 23%. Now 23% of let's say $75,000 is going to be lower than 17.4% of one million or whatever he gets paid in a year but we're talking percentages here. That 23% is a lot more onerous than the 17.4% even if the total amount being paid on the 17.4% is going to be higher. And the billionaire is going to have more money left over at the end of the year than the employee _even though he's paying a higher amount_.


I understand how it works but I think that a "fair share" would mean everyone paying an equal or relatively equal amount in order to pay for public goods and only public goods. Also due to diminishing returns people with high incomes need increeasingly more additional money to achieve the same value so increasing they amount they are taxed means that they are proportionally losing more value. I do consider progressive taxation as being potentially legitimate during times when a large amount of revenue needs to be collected as in wartime but I do not consider wealth redistribution to be legitimate


Phil Ken Sebben said:


> Are you serious or just trolling?


I am being serious. As a relatively new invention wealth redistribution can be said to have been in violation of previous arrangements but if it was explicitly rationally and unaniously agreed upon for the very long term (centuries) then I would be all for it. I do think that it is socially optimal but that doesn't change that there was not unanimous agreement to it which I consider necessary for a legitimate social contract. Since I do not believe in natural rights it still can be done but we should at least acknowledge that due to lack of unanimous consent we are engaging in violent oppression and I will no go after the rich for resisting it


----------



## Sperglord Dante (May 22, 2016)

Ruin said:


> The United States has a lot of political pressure to keep taxes as low as possible as well as a massive welfare/underclass. Any universal healthcare program would quickly collapse into bankruptcy unless we reformed our entire society.


You should, America's social programs blow ass. Universal healthcare and superior education should be way above in the list of priorities than tardbux.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 22, 2016)

Sperglord Dante said:


> You should, America's social programs blow ass. Universal healthcare and superior education should be way above in the list of priorities than tardbux.


I would also consider them to be far more socially optimal too as well as more legitimate due to having positive externalities that could constitute public goods


----------



## Phil Ken Sebben (May 22, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I do not believe that there actually was an explicit social contract ever but I do believe that there was an implicit one that occured in the 1700s and has been broken. I do not consider modern states legitimate because there wasn't an explicit social contract unaniously agreed upon but I consider them to be less illegitimate when they act as though there was a social contract through behaviours such as very strict rule of law and policies that benefit descendants from original citizens over immigrants or descendants of immigrants and I consider redistribution of wealth to be a violation of this very strict rule of law.
> 
> I understand how it works but I think that a "fair share" would mean everyone paying an equal or relatively equal amount in order to pay for public goods and only public goods. Also due to diminishing returns people with high incomes need increeasingly more additional money to achieve the same value so increasing they amount they are taxed means that they are proportionally losing more value. I do consider progressive taxation as being potentially legitimate during times when a large amount of revenue needs to be collected as in wartime but I do not consider wealth redistribution to be legitimate
> 
> I am being serious. As a relatively new invention wealth redistribution can be said to have been in violation of previous arrangements but if it was explicitly rationally and unaniously agreed upon for the very long term (centuries) then I would be all for it. I do think that it is socially optimal but that doesn't change that there was not unanimous agreement to it which I consider necessary for a legitimate social contract. Since I do not believe in natural rights it still can be done but we should at least acknowledge that due to lack of unanimous consent we are engaging in violent oppression and I will no go after the rich for resisting it


Yeah, I'm done here. 

I don't know if you're maybe first year of college or just took a philosophy course or what have you, but you're definitely crazy and I'm not interested in dealing with crazy people.


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## John Titor (May 23, 2016)

CWCissey said:


> As a Britfag, I like universal healthcare. The NHS isn't perfect, but it's better than being the pharmaceutical companies' bitch. Although I do like the choice of a private healthcare company such as BUPA being available if you so choose.


Convenient timing to bring this up: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-stories-to-remind-you-that-u.s.-could-always-be-worse/
ATB (aka, the guy Cracked readers dislike) claims the UK's health system is not what it's cracked up to be. Britbongs came out of the woodwork and called him out on it.


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## CWCissey (May 23, 2016)

John Titor said:


> Convenient timing to bring this up: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-stories-to-remind-you-that-u.s.-could-always-be-worse/
> ATB (aka, the guy Cracked readers dislike) claims the UK's health system is not what it's cracked up to be. Britbongs came out of the woodwork and called him out on it.



ATB is a cunt. I can destroy his argument with three words.

Stephen. Fucking. Hawking.

Dude constantly praises the NHS as the reason why he's still alive.


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## Pikimon (May 23, 2016)

ATB is a known cunt, he says that National Parks are a waste of money and that they suck because he doesn't like to go outside.


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## Vitriol (May 23, 2016)

AnOminous said:


> The problem is most countries with successful universal healthcare programs have 70+% tax rates and very low unemployment.


tax in the uk and germany always hovers around 45% and france is around 50% its only the nordic countries tha really breach 60% reguliarly. But i think your broad point about raising taxes being unacceptable stands.



Phil Ken Sebben said:


> Secondly, the rich do _not_ pay their fair share. They pay a lot of money but it's not proportionally higher than most of the middle class in part due to things like loopholes and the like


Eh yes and no- the top 10% generally pay 30% ish of the revenue in most developed countries. That said they generally do not pay in proportion to their wealth. The thing is this wealth is also the securities that allow them to start the majority of businesses (bear in mind the top 10% are those earning over $140 000) these securities in turn provide the stable base from which the banks can lend to poorer people from. 

Taxing the rich is complex, remove the loop holes and they may emigrate or see their wealth reduced. If you tax wealth then they will take fewer risks, start fewer businesses and you weaken the wider economy and may have a net smaller revenue.

That said some of the corporate tax avoidance is a joke starbucks and amazon in particuliar spring to mind.


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## AnOminous (May 23, 2016)

Vitriol said:


> tax in the uk and germany always hovers around 45% and france is around 50% its only the nordic countries tha really breach 60% reguliarly. But i think your broad point about raising taxes being unacceptable stands.



I didn't say what you quoted.


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## Vitriol (May 23, 2016)

AnOminous said:


> I didn't say what you quoted.


Weird I must have fucked up a quote. I didn't mean to quote you, ignore it.

Edit the wee arrow link still goes to ruins post, no idea what happened.


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## Lorento (May 23, 2016)

Vitriol said:


> Taxing the rich is complex, remove the loop holes and they may emigrate or see their wealth reduced. If you tax wealth then they will take fewer risks, start fewer businesses and you weaken the wider economy and may have a net smaller revenue.
> 
> That said some of the corporate tax avoidance is a joke starbucks and amazon in particuliar spring to mind.



I've often thought of taxing the rich as a bit like riding a unicycle while juggling balls that are on fire, while you are coated in gasoline. It's all a very tricking balancing act, and eventually there will be one cunt in the audience who wants to act uppity and throw a petrol bomb at you (the equivalent of Starbucks or Amazon.)


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## Jack Haywood (May 23, 2016)

@autisticdragonkin Good fucking Christ, you're like Ayn Rand on LSD...


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## autisticdragonkin (May 23, 2016)

Jack Haywood said:


> @autisticdragonkin Good fucking Christ, you're like Ayn Rand on LSD...


Ayn Rand believes in morality and takes sides far more firmly than I do.


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## Jack Haywood (May 23, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Ayn Rand believes in morality and takes sides far more firmly than I do.



"Takes sides far more firmly"? You've pretty much consolidated yourself as a far-right libertarian of her variety! And are you implying you *don't *believe in morality? The one thing all us inconsequential mortals possess that stop us from being a 7 billion strong group of sociopaths, opportunists and monsters? How much do your peers hate you because of your psychotic attitude?

...I'm actually close to weeping right now! I wish I had access to that oh-so-glorious deviant rating so I could plaster it on all of your god-forsaken posts on this thread, you equally god-forsaken twit!


----------



## autisticdragonkin (May 23, 2016)

Jack Haywood said:


> "Takes sides far more firmly"? You've pretty much consolidated yourself as a far-right libertarian of her variety! And are you implying you *don't *believe in morality? The one thing all us inconsequential mortals possess that stop us from being a 7 billion strong group of sociopaths, opportunists and monsters? How much do your peers hate you because of your psychotic attitude?
> 
> ...I'm actually close to weeping right now! I wish I had access to that oh-so-glorious deviant rating so I could plaster it on all of your god-forsaken posts on this thread, you equally god-forsaken twit!


What I said is that I believe that socialized medicing (and wealth redistribution in general) is a violation of the social contract and that if I were in the position of the 1% I would not tolerate such a betrayal. I do not believe in morality so as a result I do not take a side on the issue for moral reasons and merely admire strong people who do not tolerate violations against their will but do not condemn the violations themselves. This entire thread I have been condemning the weak rich people who are tolerating such actions rather than condemning those who seek universal healthcare and will benefit from it (I think that the creation of the slave morality was an ingenious plot especially when used by those who are able to avoid falling for it themselves and that the rich should treat them as honorable opponents). Since I am currently not rich I want to keep Socialized Medicine until I become rich and then get rid of it in order to defeat my enemies

I do not believe in morality. God is dead and we have killed him. If you have evidence that morality does exist then please present it now


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## Vitriol (May 23, 2016)

Jack Haywood said:


> "Takes sides far more firmly"? You've pretty much consolidated yourself as a far-right libertarian of her variety! And are you implying you *don't *believe in morality? The one thing all us inconsequential mortals possess that stop us from being a 7 billion strong group of sociopaths, opportunists and monsters? How much do your peers hate you because of your psychotic attitude?
> 
> ...I'm actually close to weeping right now! I wish I had access to that oh-so-glorious deviant rating so I could plaster it on all of your god-forsaken posts on this thread, you equally god-forsaken twit!


Calm down. He just has autism.


----------



## Jack Haywood (May 24, 2016)

Vitriol said:


> Calm down. He just has autism.



@Vitriol, ok, I got a little A-loggy on him, so what? Autism only causes a loss of mutual attachment and understanding of other people and social skills, besides other things. It typically does not lead someone to disbelieving in something that goes beyond mere social convention unless they also have anti-social personality disorder or some horrid shit like that. It does not cause outright stupidity, either.*

Autisticdragonkin is capable of acting like a normal person, so I'll treat him as if he's a normal person. I have no mercy or sympathy for anyone who disregards the only means people have of not being self-centred arseholes.



Spoiler: NOTE



*Well, unless said autism happens to be severe enough, but that's another story.





autisticdragonkin said:


> I do not believe in morality. God is dead and we have killed him. If you have evidence that morality does exist then please present it now



Furthermore, you are misinterpreting what Friedman said like most other people who read his work. He meant that people no longer needed religion to give them a moral compass when they can simply form their own morality not based on the whims of a deity.


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## autisticdragonkin (May 24, 2016)

Jack Haywood said:


> @Vitriol, ok, I got a little A-loggy on him, so what? Autism only causes a loss of mutual attachment and understanding of other people and social skills, besides other things. It typically does not lead someone to disbelieving in something that goes beyond mere social convention unless they also have anti-social personality disorder or some horrid shit like that. It does not cause outright stupidity, either.*
> 
> Autisticdragonkin is capable of acting like a normal person, so I'll treat him as if he's a normal person. I have no mercy or sympathy for anyone who disregards the only means people have of not being self-centred arseholes.
> 
> ...


My special interest is ethics so I talk about it a lot and think about it a lot. I feel like I have been moved towards thinking critically about society due to my status as an outsider and the way I have been treated which may result in a personal bias but I think I am able to avoid being influenced by my own personal experience through engaging in self critique


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## Jack Haywood (May 24, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> My special interest is ethics so I talk about it a lot and think about it a lot. I feel like I have been moved towards thinking critically about society due to my status as an outsider and the way I have been treated which may result in a personal bias but I think I am able to avoid being influenced by my own personal experience through* engaging in self critique*



And that's worked out SO well for you, hasn't it(?)


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## autisticdragonkin (May 24, 2016)

Jack Haywood said:


> And that's worked out SO well for you, hasn't it(?)


I actually have looked over my positions and realized that I was very wrong several times in the past and it is visible from some of my posts. It is very likely that it will occur in the future too. I may even someday find evidence to believe that universal classical morality does exist but I think that is quite unlikely and it is more likely that I will change more minor things such as how I define individual utility


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## Jack Haywood (May 24, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I actually have looked over my positions and realized that I was very wrong several times in the past and it is visible from some of my posts. It is very likely that it will occur in the future too. I may even someday find evidence to believe that universal classical morality does exist but I think that is quite unlikely and it is more likely that I will change more minor things such as how I define individual utility



Well, that's promising. At least you're recognising where you were wrong. Something tells me you're just going to keep spouting nonsense though, so this is where our conversation ends. Ta-ta.


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## Vitriol (May 24, 2016)

Jack Haywood said:


> I have no mercy or sympathy for anyone who disregards the only means people have of not being self-centred arseholes.


Calm down. You are being riled up by an autistic weeb.


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## Jack Haywood (May 24, 2016)

Vitriol said:


> Calm down. You are being riled up by an autistic weeb.



I'm calm now, no worries.


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## ScrewTheRules (Jun 12, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I completely acknowledge that what I advocate is going to make most people worse off


And yet, it doesn't seem to bother you in the slightest... That is the very definition of sociopathy, and there is a reason their are no sociopath communes out there. Something that is bad for society as a whole is, funnily enough, bad for society as a whole, and that includes all of the people in it. There is a reason we abandoned the feudal system, after all, and that's mostly because it had stopped working. I wonder how you think the rich will survive when there's no one to produce their food or heat their homes for them, since I doubt they're about to go do so themselves.



autisticdragonkin said:


> descendants from original citizens



You mean Native Americans?



autisticdragonkin said:


> My special interest is ethics so I talk about it a lot and think about it a lot. I feel like I have been moved towards thinking critically about society due to my status as an outsider and the way I have been treated which may result in a personal bias but I think I am able to avoid being influenced by my own personal experience through engaging in self critique



And yet you have such a poor understanding of it. You are not an outsider to society, you are part of society whether you like it or not, and unless you can show me a legitimate hate crime in your past I doubt society has treated you that badly. But for ridiculous facial hair and an overpriced, unpronounceable Starbucks coffee you sound like every pretentious hipster I have ever encountered. You are not going to get rich. There is very little social mobility in the United States. The 'American Dream' is a lie and it always has been. You are going to spend the rest of your life toiling in the mail room of some office, because you are far too autistic for anybody to tolerate, barely earning enough to keep the electric on and never enough to actually own your home. You'll maybe save up a little money, but one little bout of appendicitis and it'll completely wipe you out, leaving you with nothing but crippling debt, wondering where your universal healthcare went. And when that day comes I will point and laugh at you, because I am not a very nice man.
But if you still want flat tax and no healthcare so badly, move to Russia. Get back to me in six months, let me know how it goes for you.

Yes, universal healthcare is possible in the US, and no, it will not require a 70% tax rate. It will require an increasingly small percentage of the American populace to shut up and stop their bitching, and logistically speaking will need to be implicated by state as opposed to federally, as the US is a rather large country with huge diversity in terms of income, living conditions, quality of life and all that other fun stuff like 'likelihood of being caught in a mass shooting'. Universal healthcare also doesn't erase the market for private healthcare, but does force private healthcare bodies to provide a far superior service in order to maintain their profits, which if anything will aid innovation by forcing them to do everything sooner, faster and more effectively with fewer risks and drawbacks in order to maintain their customer base.
When the NHS was first implicated, some claimed that it would cripple the United Kingdom. It has done nothing of the sort; if anything, it has done the opposite. While there are certainly flaws in the NHS they are far less than are in the current American system, and as for what AutisticDragonKin is advocating... I'm sorry, but I fail to see how allowing people to die of minor, easily treatable conditions like appendicitis because they happen to not be rich is anything but one giant flaw; A flaw of economics, due to the amount of workforce you will lose, a flaw of national stability, for the riots and the protests it will a breed, and a flaw of ethics, because I really shouldn't have to tell any of you why leaving innocent people to die of treatable illnesses is unethical.


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## autisticdragonkin (Jun 12, 2016)

ScrewTheRules said:


> And yet, it doesn't seem to bother you in the slightest... That is the very definition of sociopathy, and there is a reason their are no sociopath communes out there. Something that is bad for society as a whole is, funnily enough, bad for society as a whole, and that includes all of the people in it. There is a reason we abandoned the feudal system, after all, and that's mostly because it had stopped working. I wonder how you think the rich will survive when there's no one to produce their food or heat their homes for them, since I doubt they're about to go do so themselves.


Robots can do all that stuff or the rich will need to pay larger amounts to get that labour. I don't understand why empathy is inherently necessary for a society to function as all of its functions that actually benefit the individual can be replaced with simple algorithms (and yes I benefit from having people I like get good stuff happen to them ant a simple function can model that)


ScrewTheRules said:


> You mean Native Americans?


Did you actually read my post? I was saying that the founders of a state (not the original inhabitants of an area) would discriminate against immigrants. We came over to north america and acted like we were allies to the Native Americans before exterminating them for the most part and I am advocating that we not let anyone else do the same to us. If the Native Americans could just kill everyone else in the land it probably would make them worse off now but if done earlier it would be a very wise decision


ScrewTheRules said:


> And yet you have such a poor understanding of it. You are not an outsider to society, you are part of society whether you like it or not, and unless you can show me a legitimate hate crime in your past I doubt society has treated you that badly.


I can but that is off of the topic of the thread


ScrewTheRules said:


> But for ridiculous facial hair and an overpriced, unpronounceable Starbucks coffee you sound like every pretentious hipster I have ever encountered. You are not going to get rich. There is very little social mobility in the United States. The 'American Dream' is a lie and it always has been. You are going to spend the rest of your life toiling in the mail room of some office, because you are far too autistic for anybody to tolerate, barely earning enough to keep the electric on and never enough to actually own your home. You'll maybe save up a little money, but one little bout of appendicitis and it'll completely wipe you out, leaving you with nothing but crippling debt, wondering where your universal healthcare went. And when that day comes I will point and laugh at you, because I am not a very nice man.


I am not American. The American ruling class is among the best of the world for crushing those who try to challenge them. It is idiotic for me to want to be in a country with what I advocate in this thread and I am happy that I live in one that isn't like that. It is only if I am rich that I actually will want anything like what I described in this thread because it is only then that it will be in my rational interest (but still not the corrupt American healthcare system). I know very well that my chances of success are very slim but to say that they are nonexistant is nonsense


ScrewTheRules said:


> Universal healthcare also doesn't erase the market for private healthcare, but does force private healthcare bodies to provide a far superior service in order to maintain their profits, which if anything will aid innovation by forcing them to do everything sooner, faster and more effectively with fewer risks and drawbacks in order to maintain their customer base.


I do not believe this for a second. In this scenario the government is just another entrant to the market and is no different from another private competitor


ScrewTheRules said:


> I'm sorry, but I fail to see how allowing people to die of minor, easily treatable conditions like appendicitis because they happen to not be rich is anything but one giant flaw; A flaw of economics, due to the amount of workforce you will lose, a flaw of national stability, for the riots and the protests it will a breed, and a flaw of ethics, because I really shouldn't have to tell any of you why leaving innocent people to die of treatable illnesses is unethical.


As I said earlier in the thread if the Bourgeoise actually want the proletariat to keep on living then they should donate to charity. I think that in most cases this would be the case.

I do not understand why "ethics" as you always refer to is something that I should care about. You obviously know something that I do not know so please tell me it because I am yet to know the reason to act in accordance with "ethics"

You still do not understand my social contract argument which is entirely me being against government providing services that are not public goods. I still think that many rich people could benefit from universal healthcare but they would need to be the ones deciding to provide it rather than the 99% outvoting them because that is a violation of the fundamental principles of the social contract by providing something that is no longer mutually beneficial (through revealed preference)


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## ScrewTheRules (Jun 12, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Robots can do all that stuff or the rich will need to pay larger amounts to get that labour. I don't understand why empathy is inherently necessary for a society to function as all of its functions that actually benefit the individual can be replaced with simple algorithms (and yes I benefit from having people I like get good stuff happen to them ant a simple function can model that)


We have not nearly created artificial intelligence yet to the point where it can be trusted to make intelligent decisions, and as such it will be a while before we can replace workers with them. A robot would run into some serious problems in my job, since we actually source from more expensive suppliers more often than you'd realise for a number of reasons, and a computer can't really make that call (all our computer systems do is determine which supplier is cheapest).
Empathy is inherently necessary for a society to function because it stops people from doing things that harm society as a whole just to benefit themselves. Humans are an inherently social animal - why do you think autism is as debilitating a condition as it is? - and have a very difficult time surviving alone. A human who, say, steals from his fellow humans will be ostracised from the group because the group don't want to be stolen from, and as a result will die. Why do you think humans evolved a sense of empathy to begin with? 



autisticdragonkin said:


> Did you actually read my post? I was saying that the founders of a state (not the original inhabitants of an area) would discriminate against immigrants. We came over to north america and acted like we were allies to the Native Americans before exterminating them for the most part and I am advocating that we not let anyone else do the same to us. If the Native Americans could just kill everyone else in the land it probably would make them worse off now but if done earlier it would be a very wise decision


You shouldn't measure all people by your own standards; all you do is show just how low your standards really are.



autisticdragonkin said:


> I can but that is off of the topic of the thread





autisticdragonkin said:


> I am not American. The American ruling class is among the best of the world for crushing those who try to challenge them. It is idiotic for me to want to be in a country with what I advocate in this thread and I am happy that I live in one that isn't like that. It is only if I am rich that I actually will want anything like what I described in this thread because it is only then that it will be in my rational interest (but still not the corrupt American healthcare system). I know very well that my chances of success are very slim but to say that they are nonexistant is nonsense


So what you're saying is, you would be willing to cripple society as a whole for your own benefit? Well thank God we aren't still living in trees and hunting down our dinner, because you would be pretty dead right now. Humans are communal animals, we cannot survive alone. If the society around you crumbles then believe me you will go down with it.



autisticdragonkin said:


> I do not believe this for a second. In this scenario the government is just another entrant to the market and is no different from another private competitor


Yeah, basically. If I can my appendix removed for free at an NHS hospital then BUPA have to give me a fucking good reason to pay for one of theirs. And this is why medicine HAS NOT stopped developing even those most developed countries have some form of universal health care.



autisticdragonkin said:


> As I said earlier in the thread if the Bourgeoise actually want the proletariat to keep on living then they should donate to charity. I think that in most cases this would be the case.
> 
> I do not understand why "ethics" as you always refer to is something that I should care about. You obviously know something that I do not know so please tell me it because I am yet to know the reason to act in accordance with "ethics"
> 
> You still do not understand my social contract argument which is entirely me being against government providing services that are not public goods. I still think that many rich people could benefit from universal healthcare but they would need to be the ones deciding to provide it rather than the 99% outvoting them because that is a violation of the fundamental principles of the social contract by providing something that is no longer mutually beneficial (through revealed preference)



Charity is an extremely inefficient means of getting anything done, and a lot of money that goes to charities ends up falling through some serious cracks in their spending habits. The voluntary sector exists to patch up holes in the public sector, not to replace it. Come on, even the Victorians managed to figure that one out.
Humans evolved a sense of empathy and developed ethics for a reason. Humans cannot survive alone. If we all went around screwing over the community as a whole for our own benefit it would result in the collapse of society, and eventually our  extinction. Lets say you got caught stealing. Your parents have kicked you out, you now have to get by on your own. You have a criminal record, so nobody is going to hire you as nobody trusts you not to steal from them, and nobody wants to be stolen from. You now have no money, no job and no home. You can either die on the street OR you can receive JSA or whatever benefits you are entitled to, in hope that at some point in the future you will find some way to contribute to society in such a way that it makes up for what you've cost us in tard bux.
Your social contract argument is bull and that is not how governments work. Yes, what the 99% want should be implicated over what the 1%  want because, like it or not, they have you outnumbered. That isn't just how democracy works, it's how REALITY works. Last I checked Louis XVI wasn't running a democracy but screwing over the 99% on behalf of the 1% didn't end too well for him, either. As I said, you are outnumbered. Don't like it? Move to Russia. I'm sure they'll love you there.


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## autisticdragonkin (Jun 12, 2016)

ScrewTheRules said:


> We have not nearly created artificial intelligence yet to the point where it can be trusted to make intelligent decisions, and as such it will be a while before we can replace workers with them. A robot would run into some serious problems in my job, since we actually source from more expensive suppliers more often than you'd realise for a number of reasons, and a computer can't really make that call (all our computer systems do is determine which supplier is cheapest).


That is a problem with the computer system. It could take into account the quality of the supplier and that wouldn't be that difficult to implement. AI is developing rapidly so it could replace many more jobs in the future and until that occurs your job could be filled by people who are payed very well for it while everyone else is unemployed


ScrewTheRules said:


> Empathy is inherently necessary for a society to function because it stops people from doing things that harm society as a whole just to benefit themselves. Humans are an inherently social animal - why do you think autism is as debilitating a condition as it is? - and have a very difficult time surviving alone. A human who, say, steals from his fellow humans will be ostracised from the group because the group don't want to be stolen from, and as a result will die. Why do you think humans evolved a sense of empathy to begin with?


I think that humans developed a sense of empathy because it was a crude way that evolution put together kin selection and game theory. We have mathematical models for both of those now. We can know not to steal through game theoretical models. It is very inefficient to use empathy for everything (I do not advocate completely eliminating it because it still works very well for kin selection but I think that we need to look critically at who we empathize with and only empathize with family)

I do not understand how your argument seems to go but I think it is something like this

There were fitness benefits of having empathy in prehistoric times-> empathy is good-> we should do fitness reducing things now because of empathy

Something that was also fitness increasing was collectivism and placing the ingroup over the outgroup and it continues to be something fitness increasing. I think that the rich could significantly increase their fitness by not caring about the poor outgroup when it doesn't benefit them



ScrewTheRules said:


> You shouldn't measure all people by your own standards; all you do is show just how low your standards really are.


But I don't have low standards. Quite to the contrary I have quite high standards for myself and others but they just happen to be ones that you find repulsive


ScrewTheRules said:


> So what you're saying is, you would be willing to cripple society as a whole for your own benefit? Well thank God we aren't still living in trees and hunting down our dinner, because you would be pretty dead right now. Humans are communal animals, we cannot survive alone.


I do not intend to survive alone. As I made very clear I intend on doing this with several other people and creating a society based on legitimate altruism in the future through political marriages


ScrewTheRules said:


> If the society around you crumbles then believe me you will go down with it.


Again why do you think that under the conditions where we specifically take precautions to preserve everything that benefits us both directly and indirectly this would happen?


ScrewTheRules said:


> Yeah, basically. If I can my appendix removed for free at an NHS hospital then BUPA have to give me a fucking good reason to pay for one of theirs. And this is why medicine HAS NOT stopped developing even those most developed countries have some form of universal health care.


I take back my statement I think you are right on this issue now that you more thoroughly explained it
I realized that generally the medical field is so uncompetitive due to medical licenses that probably government should wither have public healthcare or get rid of medical licenses to make the market more competitive


ScrewTheRules said:


> Charity is an extremely inefficient means of getting anything done, and a lot of money that goes to charities ends up falling through some serious cracks in their spending habits. The voluntary sector exists to patch up holes in the public sector, not to replace it. Come on, even the Victorians managed to figure that one out.


That is because the free market favours sentimental charities over the more practical type that I am talking about. If we actually cared to donate to effective charities they would come into existence.


ScrewTheRules said:


> Humans evolved a sense of empathy and developed ethics for a reason. Humans cannot survive alone. If we all went around screwing over the community as a whole for our own benefit it would result in the collapse of society, and eventually our extinction. Lets say you got caught stealing. Your parents have kicked you out, you now have to get by on your own. You have a criminal record, so nobody is going to hire you as nobody trusts you not to steal from them, and nobody wants to be stolen from. You now have no money, no job and no home. You can either die on the street OR you can receive JSA or whatever benefits you are entitled to, in hope that at some point in the future you will find some way to contribute to society in such a way that it makes up for what you've cost us in tard bux.


That isn't an argument for ethics it is just an argument for game theory. An argument for morality would have to provide how someone should do something even when it conflicts with their rational self interest. An example would be finding a dead person on the road in Iraq with valuable possessions and not taking them


ScrewTheRules said:


> Your social contract argument is bull and that is not how governments work. Yes, what the 99% want should be implicated over what the 1% want because, like it or not, they have you outnumbered. That isn't just how democracy works, it's how REALITY works. Last I checked Louis XVI wasn't running a democracy but screwing over the 99% on behalf of the 1% didn't end too well for him, either. As I said, you are outnumbered. Don't like it? Move to Russia. I'm sure they'll love you there.


Being outnumbered doesn't mean that you will lose if the 99% have no or near no bargaining power. I am more criticizing the notion of democracy when I say this and seeing it as a power conflict in which not everyone is equal. I think it is a breach of the rule of law to do anything other than the original purpose of the state (providing public goods) but there are very frequent breaches anyways. I consider breaches to be bad because they make it so that people are unable to properly plan their actions but they still are inevitable. I consider rule of law to actually be possible whereas democracy is not though


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## ScrewTheRules (Jun 12, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> That is a problem with the computer system. It could take into account the quality of the supplier and that wouldn't be that difficult to implement. AI is developing rapidly so it could replace many more jobs in the future and until that occurs your job could be filled by people who are payed very well for it while everyone else is unemployed


Yes, it is a problem with the computer system, but it's a problem that technology has mot developed to the point where it can be fixed. That is why we hire people, and get people to do all the fun stuff. Because people, most people, have more ability to make complex decisions than a computer, and that WON'T change any time soon.



autisticdragonkin said:


> I think that humans developed a sense of empathy because it was a crude way that evolution put together kin selection and game theory. We have mathematical models for both of those now. We can know not to steal through game theoretical models. It is very inefficient to use empathy for everything (I do not advocate completely eliminating it because it still works very well for kin selection but I think that we need to look critically at who we empathize with and only empathize with family)
> 
> I do not understand how your argument seems to go but I think it is something like this
> 
> ...


A functional human being cannot just turn off its sense of empathy, this is something that is ingrained in our species. Not having a sense of empathy is the clinical definition of a psychopath, and there's a reason that's considered a debilitating condition, too. No sense of empathy = nobody wants to be around you. And that is bad. Yes, even when you're retarded.



autisticdragonkin said:


> But I don't have low standards. Quite to the contrary I have quite high standards for myself and others but they just happen to be ones that you find repulsive


Considering your standards don't even include "Be a decent human being" I'd say they're pretty low. But you're right about one thing: I do find you repulsive.



autisticdragonkin said:


> I do not intend to survive alone. As I made very clear I intend on doing this with several other people and creating a society based on legitimate altruism in the future through political marriages


The only way legitimate altruism is possible is through empathy. If you are not capable of that, then you are not capable of true altruism. Altruism is doing something that benefits someone else at no benefit, or even at cost, to yourself. Empathy is what allows us to understand what actually benefits someone else, as opposed to assuming what benefits us inherently benefits everyone. Being willing to pay slightly higher taxes to ensure those who can't afford it is a legitimate act of altruism, and as someone who actually pays taxes I think I should get some say in what they are used for.
Also, finding other people to form a society with requires finding people outside of the internet who can tolerate you. You're going to have a hard time doing that if you're constantly screwing other people over for your own benefit.



autisticdragonkin said:


> Again why do you think that under the conditions where we specifically take precautions to preserve everything that benefits us both directly and indirectly this would happen?


What do you think universal healthcare is? It is taking precautions to protect what benefits you, both directly and indirect, by ensuring that you and the people who feed, house and clothe you don't die of treatable illnesses.



autisticdragonkin said:


> I take back my statement I think you are right on this issue now that you more thoroughly explained it
> I realized that generally the medical field is so uncompetitive due to medical licenses that probably government should wither have public healthcare or get rid of medical licenses to make the market more competitive


Whelp, I'll take what I can get, I suppose.



autisticdragonkin said:


> That is because the free market favours sentimental charities over the more practical type that I am talking about. If we actually cared to donate to effective charities they would come into existence.


Still not an efficient system, as you would need too many charities to do the work of a single government body. If you think the civil service can just be replaced with a charity then you're more retarded than you look, and you look pretty retarded. The tax system, like it or not, works, because everyone earning over a certain amount pays in and the government know roughly how much they're getting and can budget accordingly. Charities do not have that luxury. I might donate to 'Guide dogs for the blind' this month, but next month I might see a shiny silver denarius I like and by that instead. A system that collapses as soon as the new X-box comes out isn't a system at all.



autisticdragonkin said:


> That isn't an argument for ethics it is just an argument for game theory. An argument for morality would have to provide how someone should do something even when it conflicts with their rational self interest. An example would be finding a dead person on the road in Iraq with valuable possessions and not taking them


Because looting a corpse without a good reason makes you an asshole, and nobody wants to be associated with assholes. Not understanding that is a pretty good indicator of clinical psychopathy.



autisticdragonkin said:


> Being outnumbered doesn't mean that you will lose if the 99% have no or near no bargaining power. I am more criticizing the notion of democracy when I say this and seeing it as a power conflict in which not everyone is equal. I think it is a breach of the rule of law to do anything other than the original purpose of the state (providing public goods) but there are very frequent breaches anyways. I consider breaches to be bad because they make it so that people are unable to properly plan their actions but they still are inevitable. I consider rule of law to actually be possible whereas democracy is not though


Our bargaining power is that we outnumber you. French revolution, it was a thing. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but democracy has been a thing for 3000 year, it's not going away anytime soon. I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but seriously, if you hate democracy so much, move to Russia. Or better yet, Saudi Arabia, where they don't even_ pretend _to have democracy. I'd love to hear how much you hate democracy after spending six months without it...


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## autisticdragonkin (Jun 12, 2016)

ScrewTheRules said:


> Yes, it is a problem with the computer system, but it's a problem that technology has mot developed to the point where it can be fixed. That is why we hire people, and get people to do all the fun stuff. Because people, most people, have more ability to make complex decisions than a computer, and that WON'T change any time soon.


optimistic


ScrewTheRules said:


> A functional human being cannot just turn off its sense of empathy, this is something that is ingrained in our species.


Dehumanization is a way to do that that most humans are able to perform. We cannot eliminate it but as I said it is only bad towards certain individuals and just by referring to those groups as animals we can block off empathy for them.


ScrewTheRules said:


> Not having a sense of empathy is the clinical definition of a psychopath, and there's a reason that's considered a debilitating condition, too.


Agreed. Being unempathetic to everything is just as bad as being empathetic to everything. Moderation is the key so we need to find the golden mean which is optimal

Psychopathy also causes impulsiveness which is a significant part of the debilitatingness though


ScrewTheRules said:


> No sense of empathy = nobody wants to be around you. And that is bad. Yes, even when you're retarded.


I agree with this but having empathy for your enemies does not mean that they will stop being your enemies it just means that you will be easier to kill


ScrewTheRules said:


> Considering your standards don't even include "Be a decent human being" I'd say they're pretty low.


They do include that. My ethos is helping your friends and harming your enemies


ScrewTheRules said:


> The only way legitimate altruism is possible is through empathy. If you are not capable of that, then you are not capable of true altruism. Altruism is doing something that benefits someone else at no benefit, or even at cost, to yourself. Empathy is what allows us to understand what actually benefits someone else, as opposed to assuming what benefits us inherently benefits everyone.


And I am talking about selective altruism towards kin members as opposed to altruism towards strangers and I already said that I support empathy for kin


ScrewTheRules said:


> Being willing to pay slightly higher taxes to ensure those who can't afford it is a legitimate act of altruism, and as someone who actually pays taxes I think I should get some say in what they are used for.


Altruism comes from one's own will. What you are talking about is surrender to threats. The rich don't get a say in how their taxes are used because they are vastly outnumbered in the majoritarian system so it is as though they just had no ability to vote at all and they are the ones who lose from these policies


ScrewTheRules said:


> Also, finding other people to form a society with requires finding people outside of the internet who can tolerate you. You're going to have a hard time doing that if you're constantly screwing other people over for your own benefit.


I am not going to do that because despite me not caring about most other people I still have a reputation to protect. I need to keep up a reputation of honesty and accountability which is nothing to do with empathy


ScrewTheRules said:


> What do you think universal healthcare is? It is taking precautions to protect what benefits you, both directly and indirect, by ensuring that you and the people who feed, house and clothe you don't die of treatable illnesses.


But it also treats homeless people and NEETs instead of just letting them die as would be the case in a society that actually acted like that


ScrewTheRules said:


> Still not an efficient system, as you would need too many charities to do the work of a single government body. If you think the civil service can just be replaced with a charity then you're more retarded than you look, and you look pretty retarded. The tax system, like it or not, works, because everyone earning over a certain amount pays in and the government know roughly how much they're getting and can budget accordingly. Charities do not have that luxury. I might donate to 'Guide dogs for the blind' this month, but next month I might see a shiny silver denarius I like and by that instead. A system that collapses as soon as the new X-box comes out isn't a system at all.


You are not quite understanding what it would be. It would be a single charity that acts as a sort of parallel government in the way that it collects donations on a regular basis and gives sanctions to those in the 1% who benefit from it but don't pay for it but its activity is entirely controlled by the 1%. I only advocate it because the current governments are based around everyone as opposed to the 1% and everyone should benefit roughly equally from the government so I advocate secondary governments for these sorts of things


ScrewTheRules said:


> Because looting a corpse without a good reason makes you an asshole, and nobody wants to be associated with assholes. Not understanding that is a pretty good indicator of clinical psychopathy.


You won't get associated with them because nobody will know you did it. I am giving a thought experiment where you need to find a justification not to do it completely independent of consequences to yourself


ScrewTheRules said:


> Our bargaining power is that we outnumber you. French revolution, it was a thing.


Yes but the Bourbons didn't have chemical weapons, if they did they would have just dumped Sarin in the streets of Paris and the entire revolution would have been over before it began. 


ScrewTheRules said:


> And I'm sorry to tell you this, but democracy has been a thing for 3000 year, it's not going away anytime soon. I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but seriously, if you hate democracy so much, move to Russia. Or better yet, Saudi Arabia, where they don't even_ pretend _to have democracy. I'd love to hear how much you hate democracy after spending six months without it...


I would hate to be a foreigner or commoner in Saudi Arabia but I would like being a prince there assuming that oil prices were stable and high


----------



## Shokew (Jun 12, 2016)

Honestly, we could use real reform - I don't want to see more people turning to short - term benefits. It ain't worth it! And that's only for starters. 

Carry on with your argument, otherwise, guys...


----------



## ScrewTheRules (Jun 16, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> optimistic


I disagree. Your apparent faith in the rapid development of technology is optimistic. Hey, I get it. Humans are hard. We often do strange, illogical things, things that make not sense when you're watching from outside, and computers are simple, they just follow their programming. I'm sorry to tell you this, but the entire human race isn't going to be replaced by robots this side of the 22nd Century, so you're going to have to deal with people. After all, we haven't _quite _managed to create a fully-functioning sex robot.



autisticdragonkin said:


> Dehumanization is a way to do that that most humans are able to perform. We cannot eliminate it but as I said it is only bad towards certain individuals and just by referring to those groups as animals we can block off empathy for them.


Not that simple. It takes a long-term, dedicated, systematic effort to get people to fully dehumanise others. Why do you think there was so much Anti-Semitic propaganda in pre-Hlocaust Germany, or in Rwanda, or before the Second Balkan War? Sane, functioning human being cannot just turn of their empathy; they're not computers, you can't just close the program and expect it to stop running. Blocking empathy in a sane human being takes a lot of work, and it's hardly something a person can do to_ themself._



autisticdragonkin said:


> I agree with this but having empathy for your enemies does not mean that they will stop being your enemies it just means that you will be easier to kill


They don't stop being your enemies, but having empathy does not make you easier to kill. The root of psychopathy is a clinical lack of empathy, and that is what causes the impulsiveness and the desire for immediate gratification. Empathy allows you to understand other people, and to understand how they will act. Someone with no empathy will only do what benefits them in the short term, and that make them very easy to predict and much easier to defeat.



autisticdragonkin said:


> They do include that. My ethos is helping your friends and harming your enemies


The fact that you consider random poor people who can't afford healthcare and who you'll likely never meet your enemies is disturbing.
Even I'M not _that_ paranoid...



autisticdragonkin said:


> And I am talking about selective altruism towards kin members as opposed to altruism towards strangers and I already said that I support empathy for kin


That's not altruism, that self-benefit by proxy.



autisticdragonkin said:


> Altruism comes from one's own will. What you are talking about is surrender to threats. The rich don't get a say in how their taxes are used because they are vastly outnumbered in the majoritarian system so it is as though they just had no ability to vote at all and they are the ones who lose from these policies


The rich have plenty of ability to vote. You can basically buy politicians in the US, and the rich get far more say in how their taxes are used than anyone else. But then, the majority of tax revenue doesn't come from the rich, now does it? Because the poor and middle-class still pay taxes. But you're not so much concerned about the rich having no say so much as you are about everybody else having a say. 
Tell you what: if you think only the rich should get to decide how taxes are used, shouldn't the rich be the only ones paying taxes?



autisticdragonkin said:


> I am not going to do that because despite me not caring about most other people I still have a reputation to protect. I need to keep up a reputation of honesty and accountability which is nothing to do with empathy


"I have a reputation" is not going to stop you doing stupid shit. It will motivate you not to be caught, but you still will be; most people are. And the higher you put yourself with that "Reputation" of yours the further you'll have to fall.



autisticdragonkin said:


> But it also treats homeless people and NEETs instead of just letting them die as would be the case in a society that actually acted like that


Someone calling themselves AutisticDragonKin commenting on NEETs and shut-ins... Oh my sides. Get back to me in five years time when you can no longer hide behind an entirely pointless degree and can't find a job or sugarmama because of your shitty personality.



autisticdragonkin said:


> You are not quite understanding what it would be. It would be a single charity that acts as a sort of parallel government in the way that it collects donations on a regular basis and gives sanctions to those in the 1% who benefit from it but don't pay for it but its activity is entirely controlled by the 1%. I only advocate it because the current governments are based around everyone as opposed to the 1% and everyone should benefit roughly equally from the government so I advocate secondary governments for these sorts of things


You mean like the current government? Again, you can basically buy politicians, so yes government activity is governed by the 1%. And unless you are stipulating that the other 99% don't have to contribute anything at all, which would raise the costs for more for the wealthy than nationalised healthcare, I should think everybody else who pays in should get some say. You know, like in a democracy.



autisticdragonkin said:


> You won't get associated with them because nobody will know you did it. I am giving a thought experiment where you need to find a justification not to do it completely independent of consequences to yourself


If I were a corpse lying by the roadside, I would not like people to loot me unless they had a good reason. As a result, I will not do the same to others unless I have a good reason. That is empathy. 



autisticdragonkin said:


> Yes but the Bourbons didn't have chemical weapons, if they did they would have just dumped Sarin in the streets of Paris and the entire revolution would have been over before it began.


No, but Sadam Hussain, the USSR, Gadaffi, Assad, and plenty of other people did.



autisticdragonkin said:


> I would hate to be a foreigner or commoner in Saudi Arabia but I would like being a prince there assuming that oil prices were stable and high


Sorry to tell you this, but you don't get any say in which social class you're born into. You keep saying how you're going to get rich; tell me, how exactly do you think you're going to do so?



Shokew said:


> Honestly, we could use real reform - I don't want to see more people turning to short - term benefits. It ain't worth it! And that's only for starters.
> 
> Carry on with your argument, otherwise, guys...


Oh, I fully intend to.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 16, 2016)

ScrewTheRules said:


> After all, we haven't _quite _managed to create a fully-functioning sex robot.


That is a lot more difficult than many things because it relies on ability to make something look like a human as opposed to perform the same functions


ScrewTheRules said:


> I disagree. Your apparent faith in the rapid development of technology is optimistic. Hey, I get it. Humans are hard. We often do strange, illogical things, things that make not sense when you're watching from outside, and computers are simple, they just follow their programming. I'm sorry to tell you this, but the entire human race isn't going to be replaced by robots this side of the 22nd Century, so you're going to have to deal with people.


I do not think that we all will be replaced by robots but I think that it will be enough the case that the amount of humans necessary to work would be quite smaller than it is now.


ScrewTheRules said:


> Not that simple. It takes a long-term, dedicated, systematic effort to get people to fully dehumanise others. Why do you think there was so much Anti-Semitic propaganda in pre-Hlocaust Germany, or in Rwanda, or before the Second Balkan War? Sane, functioning human being cannot just turn of their empathy; they're not computers, you can't just close the program and expect it to stop running. Blocking empathy in a sane human being takes a lot of work, and it's hardly something a person can do to_ themself._


It does take a lot of work but it is possible. If a group of people all understand that their interests lie in not helping a certain group they can dehumanize that group


ScrewTheRules said:


> They don't stop being your enemies, but having empathy does not make you easier to kill. The root of psychopathy is a clinical lack of empathy, and that is what causes the impulsiveness and the desire for immediate gratification. Empathy allows you to understand other people, and to understand how they will act. Someone with no empathy will only do what benefits them in the short term, and that make them very easy to predict and much easier to defeat.


You are conflating psychopathy and autism and selective empathy. Psychopathy is a debilitating illness that causes lack of affective empathy (not just selective affective empathy) and impulsiveness and it is likely that they share the same cause but not necessarily that the lack of empathy is what causes the impulsiveness and not vice versa or a third cause. Autism is not understanding others but autists can still understand others using social science just not with intuition. Selective empathy would mean not being a psychopath and still feeling the feelings of others but only of an ingroup and relative apathy to the outgroup (which itself could potentially have further problems, I am not saying it is perfect)


ScrewTheRules said:


> That's not altruism, that self-benefit by proxy.


That argument could be made for almost anything that is categorized as altruism. You can say that someone is just being altruistic because it makes them feel good so they are not really being altruistic but it is easier to just say they are being altruistic and that is a part of altruism
http://www.iep.utm.edu/psychego/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism#Criticisms


ScrewTheRules said:


> The rich have plenty of ability to vote. You can basically buy politicians in the US, and the rich get far more say in how their taxes are used than anyone else. But then, the majority of tax revenue doesn't come from the rich, now does it? Because the poor and middle-class still pay taxes. But you're not so much concerned about the rich having no say so much as you are about everybody else having a say.
> Tell you what: if you think only the rich should get to decide how taxes are used, shouldn't the rich be the only ones paying taxes?


I do think that the rich should be the only ones paying taxes. But it could also work with amount of votes just being proportional to tax paid if you want to still let the poor vote


ScrewTheRules said:


> "I have a reputation" is not going to stop you doing stupid shit. It will motivate you not to be caught, but you still will be; most people are. And the higher you put yourself with that "Reputation" of yours the further you'll have to fall.


The best way to not get caught is to not do illegal things. Yes if I was absolutely certain that I could avoid capture I would do a lot of things but when can you really be certain of that. I prefer to play it safe with those sorts of things and many crimes don't even pay that well to begin with


ScrewTheRules said:


> Someone calling themselves AutisticDragonKin commenting on NEETs and shut-ins... Oh my sides. Get back to me in five years time when you can no longer hide behind an entirely pointless degree and can't find a job or sugarmama because of your shitty personality.


I am not a NEET but being one can actually be a pretty good idea when you know the government will take care of you. The reason why I intend not to be one is that it is pretty bad for surviving future political instability


ScrewTheRules said:


> You mean like the current government? Again, you can basically buy politicians, so yes government activity is governed by the 1%. And unless you are stipulating that the other 99% don't have to contribute anything at all, which would raise the costs for more for the wealthy than nationalised healthcare, I should think everybody else who pays in should get some say. You know, like in a democracy.


I am proposing that we include enough people such that the marginal cost equals the marginal benefit


ScrewTheRules said:


> No, but Sadam Hussain, the USSR, Gadaffi, Assad, and plenty of other people did.


Saddam was invaded not overthrown. 
Gadaffi didn't have chemical weapons when overthrown
Assad didn't have the economic conditions
The USSR probably did not have the economic conditions either





ScrewTheRules said:


> Sorry to tell you this, but you don't get any say in which social class you're born into. You keep saying how you're going to get rich; tell me, how exactly do you think you're going to do so?


I know you do not but you do get to choose what social class your children are born into (to an extent) and I want to make a better future for my children. I want to make a startup


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## Pickle Inspector (Jun 16, 2016)

While I hope you become wealthier than Trump @autisticdragonkin studies show it's unlikely you'll be rich if your parents weren't also rich:


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## samuraicrack (Dec 9, 2018)

So I’ve been thinking about the current state of Healthcare in the U.S for some reason today, and I’ve been doing a bit of research into both sides of the argument in favor of and against universal healthcare. I’m still sort of on the fence as which one to support, though.

Then I looked at the sort of mediocre impact that Obamacare had on the American populace and I wonder, what could have been done better if we were to try again? I wanted to get some insight from people who might be a bit more savvy on this.


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## Y2K Baby (Dec 9, 2018)

samuraicrack said:


> I wanted to get some insight from people who might be a bit more savvy on this.


So, of course, you came to Kiwi Farms.


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## dopy (Dec 9, 2018)

name a single time the US government did anything actually 100% correct, especially for its own citizens, before

*sips yak piss while waiting*


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## Woke Blue Muttlema (Dec 9, 2018)

If you are not willing to pay more on taxes you don't get free drugs. 
I hope you enjoy long ass lines of people on the verge of death.
Meds and nurses who work with the cheapest tools and more often that not are forced to pay the consequences of the system.


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## samuraicrack (Dec 9, 2018)

Y2K Baby said:


> So, of course, you came to Kiwi Farms.


Isn’t that what the Deep Thoughts board is for?


dopy said:


> name a single time the US government did anything actually 100% correct, especially for its own citizens, before
> 
> *sips yak piss while waiting*


We don’t have to pay a license to watch porn.


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## oldTireWater (Dec 9, 2018)

Let them eat cake. Or Oxy as the case may be.


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## IV 445 (Dec 9, 2018)

Ok I’ll give a short response.

If something is free that doesn’t always mean it’s good. I’d go into detail but I’m on mobile and thank God have not had to deal with healthcare as a patient yet.


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## AF 802 (Dec 9, 2018)

Government healthcare won't work. Just look at the post office or any other horribly inefficient government agency and tell me it'll work.

inb4 "muh medicare/medicaid". Those are contracted to third-parties, government just awards the contracts.


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## Lysenko (Dec 9, 2018)

We'd have to have the condition that the government totally shuts off the sweet oxy/fentanyl supply that is killing everyone but the drug companies have too much money in the system it will never happen.


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## NOT Sword Fighter Super (Dec 9, 2018)

Healthcare is fucked on a fundamental level and needs to be torn down before it can be built back up properly. 

Which will likely never happen.


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## Outer Party Member (Dec 10, 2018)

Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.

The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.

Now, put these ratios and percentages together with one final number: The average American pays around $10,000 in health care. Drugs are expensive. The consequences of obesity include lifelong dependency on these drugs. Obese people have to visit the doctor and hospitals for illnesses and tests frequently. Again, those visits are expensive. As it happens,  doctors get paid a lot more in the US than most countries, $230,000 per specialist $161,000 per GP a year. The UK is $150,000 per specialit and $118,000 a year. Now that’s a lot of money!

So, who foots the bill for the consequences of poor choices in life? The taxpayer. It doesn’t matter the current tax increase rate, because that cost will continue to rise as people get fatter. There will come a point where the cost of burden outweighs and reasonable tax people are willing to pay. If you want the notion of single-payer health care, you have to hit the gym and eat less.

Plus, would you want to pay for Amberlynn’s diabetes medication?


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## Y2K Baby (Dec 10, 2018)

Outer Party Member said:


> Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.
> 
> The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.
> 
> ...


Lol, Australia.


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## Crunchy Leaf (Dec 10, 2018)

Outer Party Member said:


> Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.
> 
> The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.
> 
> ...


what about universal healthcare but only for skinny people


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Dec 16, 2018)

Universal healthcare can take many forms, but just about whatever form it takes, it invariably proves to be a worthwhile investment. Not only are healthcare outcomes generally better under universal coverage, but it is consistently more cost-effective as well.

The reason for this is quite straightforward: private enterprise is most effective when markets are elastic; government intervention is most effective when markets are inelastic.

In most cases, when the price of something goes up, demand goes down, but in the case of healthcare, demand doesn't change relative to pricing, because healthcare is an inelastic market. If you are sick and in need of medical treatment, then you are going to pay whatever you have to in order to get it, because the alternative is to suffer and die. Healthcare providers know this, and market mechanisms alone have no way of ensuring that they act in the best interest of consumers, because from their standpoint, they practically have a guaranteed customer either way.

This goes some way to explain why healthcare costs in America are so high, and why coverage has historically been so poor relative to other developed countries.


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## Just Some Other Guy (Dec 16, 2018)

Everyone might be covered, but what do you do if an xray takes a month to get done? Plenty of stories of horrible delays in Canada and Europe. Will us having it suddenly wave these issues away?


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Dec 16, 2018)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> Universal healthcare can take many forms, but just about whatever form it takes, it invariably proves to be a worthwhile investment. Not only are healthcare outcomes generally better under universal coverage, but it is consistently more cost-effective as well.
> 
> The reason for this is quite straightforward: private enterprise is most effective when markets are elastic; government intervention is most effective when markets are inelastic.
> 
> ...



Food and water are cheaper than they've ever been in history to the point where our homeless, if traveled back in time, would be mistaken for royalty or the upper class.  The constant claims that healthcare is unique doesn't cut it, without food people starve and die.

The reason healthcare costs are high in America are multifaceted and is largely driven by an insurance-lead market.  I can't verify this but I've heard the origination of that was tax breaks for companies that offered health insurance to employees.  Regardless, the prices for healthcare in America are high for the same reason college tuition keeps growing.  Grants and scholarships put someone else on the hook for the price, so the actual "consumers" aren't competing by price so much (especially when taking on debt is cheerfully encouraged by school teachers on up to youth that don't yet understand the value of a dollar), and since people want to go to college, more grants and scholarships are given out, which in turn causes schools to raise prices to get the actual money the students would have spent originally anyway. This sort of thing isn't new, but people never learn lessons from the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_system#Criticisms

Nobody in America goes to the physician and has any idea what the costs are going to be.


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## Cool kitties club (Dec 16, 2018)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> Food and water are cheaper than they've ever been in history to the point where our homeless, if traveled back in time, would be mistaken for royalty or the upper class.  The constant claims that healthcare is unique doesn't cut it, without food people starve and die.
> 
> The reason healthcare costs are high in America are multifaceted and is largely driven by an insurance-lead market.  I can't verify this but I've heard the origination of that was tax breaks for companies that offered health insurance to employees.  Regardless, the prices for healthcare in America are high for the same reason college tuition keeps growing.  Grants and scholarships put someone else on the hook for the price, so the actual "consumers" aren't competing by price so much (especially when taking on debt is cheerfully encouraged by school teachers on up to youth that don't yet understand the value of a dollar), and since people want to go to college, more grants and scholarships are given out, which in turn causes schools to raise prices to get the actual money the students would have spent originally anyway. This sort of thing isn't new, but people never learn lessons from the past.
> 
> ...


Hospitals had to hike up prices to make it seem like insurance was a better deal then it was


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## Webby's Boyfriend (Dec 16, 2018)

Outer Party Member said:


> Healthcare will never work in the USA at the present time, and I will explain from a different point of view.
> 
> The short answer is this: America is too fat. Americans eat too much, drink too much, and don’t exercise enough. At least 1 out of 3 people in the USA is obese, and will soon become 1 out of 2. Now obesity is more than just being fat; it brings long-term health consequences, as your body is working extra just to keep you alive. You’re inviting diabetes, CVDs, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer etc. and healthcare for heavyweights come at a heavy cost, a 29% increase in healthcare costs.
> 
> ...


Then why don't they just loose weight?

The government could tax fast food and then use that revenue for universal healthcare or just deport all fat people to Africa.


----------



## Hellbound Hellhound (Dec 16, 2018)

Just Some Other Guy said:


> Everyone might be covered, but what do you do if an xray takes a month to get done? Plenty of stories of horrible delays in Canada and Europe. Will us having it suddenly wave these issues away?



I'd say the issue of waiting times is mostly influenced by the efficiency of the system in question and how effectively it is implemented. It's not clear to me that universal healthcare automatically leads to longer waiting times. It's surprisingly difficult to find reliable or comprehensive data on this, but the data we do have doesn't clearly suggest this. The UK has significantly lower waiting times than Canada, despite both having government run healthcare systems.



Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> Food and water are cheaper than they've ever been in history. The constant claims that healthcare is unique doesn't cut it, without food people starve and die.



Food production is not an inelastic market though, because while food is of high overall value, it is of low marginal value. If the price of bread or milk were to suddenly go up, for instance, the demand would come down. The same is not true for healthcare.



Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> The reason healthcare costs are high in America are multifaceted and is largely driven by an insurance-lead market. I can't verify this but I've heard the origination of that was tax breaks for companies that offered health insurance to employees. Regardless, the prices for healthcare in America are high for the same reason college tuition keeps growing. Grants and scholarships put someone else on the hook for the price, so the actual "consumers" aren't competing by price so much (especially when taking on debt is cheerfully encouraged by school teachers on up to youth that don't yet understand the value of a dollar), and since people want to go to college, more grants and scholarships are given out, which in turn causes schools to raise prices to get the actual money the students would have spent originally anyway.



I don't disagree that the reasons for American healthcare costs are multifaceted, but I think your argument negates an important consideration, namely: why market forces were unable to prevent healthcare from becoming an insurance-lead market in the first place. I don't find tax breaks to be a very convincing explanation, because you are still left with the question of why healthcare providers couldn't simply undercut the insurance companies by offering services cheaper over the counter. I think my explanation already covers this: they have no economic incentive to.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Dec 16, 2018)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> Food production is not an inelastic market though, because while food is of high overall value, it is of low marginal value. If the price of bread or tard cum were to suddenly go up, for instance, the demand would come down. The same is not true for healthcare.



I'm no economist by any means but as I understand it, food IS considered an inelastic good.  People need food to stay alive and will always need it.  The fact that food is relatively cheap and if the price of any individual food stuff goes up, people will buy something else doesn't change the fact that food is food, and in a famine, the price would go up but the need for consumption would stay the same.  



> I don't disagree that the reasons for American healthcare costs are multifaceted, but I think your argument negates an important consideration, namely: why market forces were unable to prevent healthcare from becoming an insurance-lead market in the first place. I don't find tax breaks to be a very convincing explanation, because you are still left with the question of why healthcare providers couldn't simply undercut the insurance companies by offering services cheaper over the counter. I think my explanation already covers this: they have no economic incentive to.



I disagree, and I fail to see how this is different from college education, though I agree that they have no economic incentive to, because healthcare providers don''t undercut the insurance companies because the insurance companies are paying them.  Healthcare, unlike nearly every other industry, has its pricing hidden behind a smokescreen of insurance; you pay the insurance company, and they pay the healthcare provider.  Of course healthcare providers bump the price up.  They're not trying to undercut insurance companies, whatever that even means, they're trying to milk as much money OUT of them, which is again exactly why college tuition keep rising--due to near-guarantee of financial aid, grants, and scholarships, colleges just shrug and bump up the price to what students were going to personally pay anyway.  Remember when Martin Shkreli was in the news for bumping up  the price of a dug something like 500x?  It wasn't because he was trying to gouge the random few that needed it, no, as he himself stated it was to gouge insurance companies (if you could not afford it and had no insurance his company provided it for free).


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Dec 18, 2018)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> I'm no economist by any means but as I understand it, food IS considered an inelastic good. People need food to stay alive and will always need it. The fact that food is relatively cheap and if the price of any individual food stuff goes up, people will buy something else doesn't change the fact that food is food, and in a famine, the price would go up but the need for consumption would stay the same.



Food might be an inelastic good in countries where food is scarce, but in the developed world, this doesn't hold true. Economic elasticity refers to the degree to which the supply or demand of a good or service is responsive to changes in pricing, and outside of extreme circumstances such as famine, food is highly elastic in this regard.

If we use bread as an example: if the price of bread were to suddenly go up, then people would start cutting down and buying less bread (hence: elastic demand). If demand were to suddenly go up (for whatever reason), then food manufacturers would simply produce more of it to meet the change in demand (hence: elastic supply).

The healthcare industry doesn't work like this. Firstly, supply is inherently limited by the costs and barriers to entry involved; secondly, the demand is inherently unresponsive to market forces due to the unusual combination of it's rarity and severity. It is not very often that you need emergency surgery or cancer treatment over the course of a lifetime, but when you do, it's a matter of life or death, and a change in price isn't going to make you want it less.

In short, healthcare is a seller's market, and this is true with or without insurance being involved.



Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> I disagree, and I fail to see how this is different from college education, though I agree that they have no economic incentive to, because healthcare providers don''t undercut the insurance companies because the insurance companies are paying them.



Healthcare is different from college education in one crucial respect: the benefits the former brings are tangible and proven, whereas the benefits the latter brings are largely speculative. Having a degree from Harvard is likely to net you a much more prosperous career than that of a non-college graduate, but why is this the case? Is it because of the valuable skills that having such a degree equips you with, or is it due to the social status that people generally associate with an Ivy League education? This distinction is important, because the latter implies there is a bubble that could burst, whereas the former does not.



Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> Healthcare, unlike nearly every other industry, has its pricing hidden behind a smokescreen of insurance; you pay the insurance company, and they pay the healthcare provider.



You pay for insurance because the cost of not doing so would be too much to risk. It's the difference between being caught out and having to sell your home to pay off a huge medical bill, or paying a regular (though just about manageable) fee to guard against that eventuality. Most people are going to choose the insurance.



Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> They're not trying to undercut insurance companies, whatever that even means, they're trying to tard cum as much money OUT of them, which is again exactly why college tuition keep rising--due to near-guarantee of financial aid, grants, and scholarships, colleges just shrug and bump up the price to what students were going to personally pay anyway. Remember when Martin Shkreli was in the news for bumping up the price of a dug something like 500x? It wasn't because he was trying to gouge the random few that needed it, no, as he himself stated it was to gouge insurance companies (if you could not afford it and had no insurance his company provided it for free).



Which supports what I have been saying all along. The more inelastic the market for something is, the stronger the argument for government intervention. Market forces aren't going to correct the problems you've described.


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## vanilla_pepsi_head (Dec 18, 2018)

Can only speak for Ontario, Canada but I've never faced unreasonable waiting times or received substandard care. Some of my American friends have spent 13+ hours in waiting rooms in NY but the longest I've ever waited is like 4 hours and I wasn't in imminent danger of dying so it's fair that the heart attack guy and stab wound guy jumped the line. From my experience the only people who bitch about waiting are the ones in there because their kid has the sniffles. There are a lot of rural areas where the health care might be ass, I don't know, but in the city I've never known anyone who needed access to health care services and couldn't get them.

It's very interesting the difference in attitude toward health care that Americans have. It really is considered a luxury and people are resentful against paying for a service that might benefit someone else. I kind of get it, but to Canadians that is bizarre. Here even the highly conservative people who are dead set against can't fathom taking away access to health care for the poor or disabled (or meth heads, breeders, fat people, smokers, etc). Personally I wouldn't be against providing a tax benefit for people who keep themselves healthier but implementing something like that would probably be so expensive it wouldn't be worth it.


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## Slap47 (Dec 19, 2018)

Just Some Other Guy said:


> Everyone might be covered, but what do you do if an xray takes a month to get done? Plenty of stories of horrible delays in Canada and Europe. Will us having it suddenly wave these issues away?



XRay is a 30 minute wait at a walk-in clinic.

The issue with judging Canadian healthcare is that the system is heavily decentralized. Your province decides the quality of your healthcare. 

Canada has longer wait times for certain operations but in America people just die. Dead men tell no tales.


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## Wraith (Dec 19, 2018)

Oh I would just LOVE to have government run universal healthcare by the same people who screwed over the Indians and veterans on a regular basis, run by the same people who call people "deplorables," racist, nativist and does all sort of crap to people on a regular basis. I mean it wasn't like Oburma used the IRS to attack people he didn't like, what's the chance of the left swinging their flacid penors around to hurt people when they are most vulnerable, needing healthcare?

People suck. There will always be people who hate you will make use of whatever power you give them to mess with your life. We don't need harmful politicians who hate you for one reason or another to have another power against the citizenry to mess with them.


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## Red Hood (Dec 19, 2018)

samuraicrack said:


> So I’ve been thinking about the current state of Healthcare in the U.S for some reason today, and I’ve been doing a bit of research into both sides of the argument in favor of and against universal healthcare. I’m still sort of on the fence as which one to support, though.
> 
> Then I looked at the sort of mediocre impact that Obamacare had on the American populace and I wonder, what could have been done better if we were to try again? I wanted to get some insight from people who might be a bit more savvy on this.


Everything could have been done better. Obamacare seemed to only make the system more complicated to me. Either go fully single payer (which I admit, I favor) or let the free market have full reign, but don't create a half-assed abortion that doesn't actually make it easier to get coverage.

I came in under the poverty line one year and was told I _didn't make enough money_ to qualify for assistance. WHAT THE FUCK SENSE DOES THAT MAKE?


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## byuu (Dec 19, 2018)

Give Her The D said:


> Just look at the post office or any other horribly inefficient government agency and tell me it'll work.


Look at countries where they privatized the mail service and tell me if it improved anything.


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Dec 19, 2018)

BigRuler said:


> this is not accurate.
> it applies to emergencies like a gunshot wound or a perforated stomach, where you will literally drop dead or suffer permanent damage if left untreated.
> but the overwhelming majority of the health care industry is not emergency care - the vast majority is dealing with mundane and banal situations like annoying lower back pain, recurring digestive problems, a bad knee, an itchy skin condition, etc. these are not life or death situations, just minor inconveniences. the health care market as a whole is highly elastic.



When an ailment causes enough discomfort that not having it medically treated negatively affects a person's quality of life, then what I said absolutely is accurate. Perhaps you could say that the demand for treatment in cases of more minor ailments is more elastic than it is for more severe ones, but this consideration doesn't in any way undermine my central point that healthcare is inelastic relative to other goods and services, it just diverts attention away from the areas where my argument is strongest.

Another consideration worth making here is one of prevention. Suppose one of the minor ailments you speak of could be the beginning of a more severe one? By having a system in place which empowers people to get it addressed early, you are saving money (and lives) in the long-term. What isn't sensible about that?


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## ES 148 (Dec 19, 2018)

Emergency healthcare should definitely be free imo - if someone gets hit by a drunk driver or attacked in the street, they shouldn't end up thousands of dollars in debt as well as losing out on work (and in extreme circumstances, stuff like loss of movement/function) because their health insurance doesn't cover it or whatever.


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## Just Some Other Guy (Dec 19, 2018)

Apoth42 said:


> XRay is a 30 minute wait at a walk-in clinic.
> 
> The issue with judging Canadian healthcare is that the system is heavily decentralized. Your province decides the quality of your healthcare.
> 
> Canada has longer wait times for certain operations but in America people just die. Dead men tell no tales.


Not Canada, Italy.

*Edit* Also saying in the US people just die is a very disingenuous statement. Let's look at the big bad cancer and we see the US has one of the highest survival rates for cancer. According to the UN as of 2015, more people 15-60 die in Europe than in the US (that reverses in the older bracket). There's also the age old saying "People die on the steps of hospitals each day". So no, universal healthcare is not a magic bullet fix to mortality.


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## hambeerlyingnreed (Dec 19, 2018)

Universal Healthcare is Breaking Bad being a 1 season series. Guy goes to doctor, shows healthcard at receptionist desk, gets tested and then undergoes treatment for cancer. Maybe there's some sappy side story, like a female cousin shaving her head in solidarity and then gets made fun of, but when people find out the reason why she has a new haircut a bunch of the cool kids shave their heads too.  Or some sultry side story, like the wife cheating on him with one of the nurses in the chemo clinic. Bonus points if it's a female nurse.


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Dec 19, 2018)

BigRuler said:


> what other goods and services? cause there's a ton of them that are a lot less elastic than healthcare. housing, food, water, electricity, heating, fuel - and most of them (or all, it varies by country) are matters of private business, not state owned.



I've already explained why food is not an inelastic good, and all of the others you've mentioned are heavily supervised and regulated by the government even when they're not state owned.

As for housing, that's a bit more complicated, because while supply is relatively inelastic, demand is not. What we observe with housing is that when real estate prices go up, the number of households contracts (in real terms: more young people continue to live with their parents; siblings are more likely to share rooms, etc). The subject of housing is made even more complicated by the way that prices have been inflated in recent decades due to the government's laxness in the face of permissive bank lending. This is one of the reasons we're in such a mess following the housing crash.

The point to take from this is that the market is not always effective at regulating itself, and this fact is particularly evident when you're talking about goods and services that are heavily resistant to changes in supply and demand, like healthcare.



BigRuler said:


> the part where a massive amount of time and resources is wasted on unproductive endeavours.
> when the person making the decision about purchasing something is not the person who has to pay the bill, then there is no incentive for efficiency anymore, which in the case of healthcare results in massive overprescription of drugs and treatments.



I think you'll find that overmedication is especially pronounced in the United States, where the healthcare industry is managed by private enterprise. I also think you'll find that most people (especially parents) will happily "pay the bill" when a healthcare professional can convince them that the treatment being offered is beneficial.

The question this begs is: who is better suited to decide which treatments are necessary and which are not? Is it the private companies who have a vested economic interest in selling you their treatments, or is it government agencies who are charged with helping consumers make an informed decision? Personally, I'm more inclined to go with the latter.



BigRuler said:


> more specifically, the decision to purchase treatment is made by patients and doctors and is loosely regulated by insurance policy. cost is not a concern for either of them because neither of them pays the bills.
> doctors are incentivised to maximize the amount of medicatio nand treatment the patient receives, because they are the ones getting paid to prescribe, administer and supervise it. this incentive to maximize prescriptions naturally aligns with the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, which is also keen on maximizing drug prescriptions for obvious reasons.



The incentive to overmedicate on the part of doctors and pharmaceutical companies is not the fault of insurance companies, they merely exacerbate the problem. What you're actually describing is the ineffectiveness of the market to look out for the best interests of patients in the face of the healthcare industry's bottom line, and it doesn't seem clear to me that the market is ever likely to fix this.

It might help if patients were more informed regarding which treatments are beneficial and which are not, but asking for such a thing is deeply naive. Most people are not in a position to make an informed choice, which is why we depend upon people with medical PhDs to make those decisions for us.



BigRuler said:


> the bill for the whole process gets passed to the insurance provider (which, in the case of socialized care, is the state) where it is processed and reorganized. eventually the insurance provider passes on the costs to its customers - this is where the major problem arises: if the insurance provider is working in a market setting, it has a natural incentive to minimize this cost in order to keep its customer base - if insurance prices are too high, customers might think about switching to a cheaper competitor, or drop their insurance altogether.



Insurance in the US does operate in a market setting, and it is still much more expensive than healthcare costs in Europe. One problem here is that the insurance market suffers from a lack of competition due to the excessive barriers to entry involved, but this isn't something that market forces alone can fix.

A workable solution did come close with the Affordable Care Act, but the act was butchered with the removal of the public option. Had the public option remained, I think the cost of healthcare would have been measurably reduced.



BigRuler said:


> but when you have socialized healthcare, this incentive goes out the window - because now the insurance provider is a state-owned monopoly, there is no competition that the customers could go to, and because the government forces everyone to be part of the insurance, they do not have the option of dropping out either. in such a system, customer agency is eliminated, and with it all incentives to act efficiently.



Why does universal healthcare necessarily have to be "socialized"? There are many forms it can take, and just about the only commonality between these systems is that the government is playing a role in reducing the excesses of market incentives which don't work in the best interests of the public. Just about every developed country apart from the US does this, and they have better access to healthcare than the US as a result.

I don't buy the argument that universal healthcare is automatically less efficient or less competitive. Would the public option in the original draft of the Affordable Care Act have reduced competition? Because it seems to me that the opposite would have been true, which might be why no insurance company wanted to compete with it.


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## Slap47 (Dec 19, 2018)

Just Some Other Guy said:


> Not Canada, Italy.
> 
> *Edit* Also saying in the US people just die is a very disingenuous statement. Let's look at the big bad cancer and we see the US has one of the highest survival rates for cancer.



I did some reading and apparently the USA lets you sue doctors for failing to diagnose cancer an that these lawsuits are common. 

The thing about Americans is that they're insanely good at pursuing incentives. This is good but can also lead to insane shit when you have perverse incentives (private prisons are the best example). 

The American healthcare system is also full of perverse incentives. People are milked dry for medicine that is cheaper everywhere else and organizations like insurance companies have developed a parasitical relationship with the govt and American people. 



Hellbound Hellhound said:


> Why does universal healthcare necessarily have to be "socialized"? There are many forms it can take, and just about the only commonality between these systems is that the government is playing a role in reducing the excesses of market incentives which don't work in the best interests of the public. Just about every developed country apart from the US does this, and they have better access to healthcare than the US as a result.
> 
> I don't buy the argument that universal healthcare is automatically less efficient or less competitive. Would the public option in the original draft of the Affordable Care Act have reduced competition? Because it seems to me that the opposite would have been true, which might be why no insurance company wanted to compete with it.



People keep looking to social democrats in Europe but even uber-capitalists like Singapore and HongKong have these systems in place. It really is just cheaper and better for the people to have a govt run system.


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## Just Some Other Guy (Dec 19, 2018)

Apoth42 said:


> I did some reading and apparently the USA lets you sue doctors for failing to diagnose cancer an that these lawsuits are common.
> 
> The thing about Americans is that they're insanely good at pursuing incentives. This is good but can also lead to insane shit when you have perverse incentives (private prisons are the best example).
> 
> ...


Are you saying it's better for people in those countries, or it's better for all people? Once again, our mortality rates would beg to differ. The huge problem of heart disease in the US is actually killing less people per capita than in Europe.


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## Slap47 (Dec 19, 2018)

Just Some Other Guy said:


> The huge problem of heart disease in the US is actually killing less people per capita than in Europe.



It seems like Americans are far more likely to get heart disease than any Europeans because of their diet and work-life balance. The French, Mediterraneans and Slovaks have an especially low rate of heart disease while the British have a much higher rate. 

Those EU regulations and all that biking probably play a role. Anyway, I don't know where you got that statistic. Perhaps far less Europeans getting heart disease plays into that per capita mortality.


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Dec 19, 2018)

The Shadow said:


> Everything could have been done better. Obamacare seemed to only make the system more complicated to me. Either go fully single payer (which I admit, I favor) or let the free market have full reign, but don't create a half-assed abortion that doesn't actually make it easier to get coverage.
> 
> I came in under the poverty line one year and was told I _didn't make enough money_ to qualify for assistance. WHAT THE FUCK SENSE DOES THAT MAKE?



I'll make a bold claim I can't really substantiate:

Obamacare was a stop-gap the Democrats intended to be a short-term solution until they felt univeral healthcare was politically viable, and it was never intended to succeed long term.


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## Slap47 (Dec 19, 2018)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> I'll make a bold claim I can't really substantiate:
> 
> Obamacare was a stop-gap the Democrats intended to be a short-term solution until they felt univeral healthcare was politically viable, and it was never intended to succeed long term.



Obama took massive donations from insurance companies and basically raided the treasury to pay them off.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapo...he-treasury-to-pay-off-insurers/#7d864296164d
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/obama-2012-health-care-campaign-donations_n_1048673

The Democratic party is one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet. The only reason they oppose pipelines is because their top donors like Warren Buffet want the oil to be transferred on the railways they own.

Healthcare, oil, war... its always for a small clique of donors.


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## Red Hood (Dec 19, 2018)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> I'll make a bold claim I can't really substantiate:
> 
> Obamacare was a stop-gap the Democrats intended to be a short-term solution until they felt univeral healthcare was politically viable, and it was never intended to succeed long term.


I think that's what they want us to think but I think in reality the insurance companies have a tight grip on the balls of congress.


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## Just Some Other Guy (Dec 22, 2018)

I just realized the best arguement against universal healthcare in the US from another thread. Look at how much we spend on public education, then look at the results. That's the government you want to run your healthcare?


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## Harbinger of Kali Yuga (Dec 22, 2018)

Just Some Other Guy said:


> I just realized the best arguement against universal healthcare in the US from another thread. Look at how much we spend on public education, then look at the results. That's the government you want to run your healthcare?



I'm not sympathetic to either public education or public healthcare (lol) but it's not quite a valid comparison in that public education is handled on a more local level which is where funding comes from; universal healthcare would be something (probably) managed by the federal government.

I'll leave you to decide if that actually makes it better or worse.


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## Just Some Other Guy (Dec 22, 2018)

Harbinger of Kali Yuga said:


> I'm not sympathetic to either public education or public healthcare (lol) but it's not quite a valid comparison in that public education is handled on a more local level which is where funding comes from; universal healthcare would be something (probably) managed by the federal government.
> 
> I'll leave you to decide if that actually makes it better or worse.


Fair enough point, I raise you the whole mess that is Social Security. Wonderful federal management of a social program at it's best.


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## The Great Chandler (Dec 22, 2018)

I think universal healthcare should operate differently depending on the state since every health issue in each region is different.


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## lameandgay2 (Dec 23, 2018)

Never trust the government to give you healthcare worth having. 
I've paid a scary amount of money for private treatment (out of pocket, insurance isn't really a thing here) to avoid NHS 'treatment' like the plague. 
All you have to do is Google 'NHS failings' and you'll see why. Including them hiring fake Doctors from overseas because they're too busy saving money to avoid unnecessary deaths and suffering.


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## pwincess fwuffypants (Dec 23, 2018)

Nothing's free. If you don't pay for it with money, you'll pay for it with time. Or political favors. The more socialist the system, the more the access to goods and services matter and who you know.

I find it interesting that hardly anyone demands "universal car maintenance" where you can get your car repaired and diagnosed on demand for cheap or free. Or that anyone demands "universal pet maintenance" where you can take your dog or cat to the vet and have most of the costs covered by some state-run plan.

In general, although not perfect, you find that the prices for vet and mechanic services tend to be fairly transparent and that between that, internet ratings and access to decent consumer credit, the services tend to be priced close to their value. Bad actors get weeded out pretty quick and avoided when they get too many bad ratings and most people pay out of pocket when the services are needed.

Whereas hospitals in the U.S. tend to be these slimy opaque things that operate more like car dealers where they open with some bullshit bill and then more or less force you to dicker and haggle over and over and over again, even so, leaving you with no idea whether you got ripped off or paid a fair price. You're supposed to depend on some insurance entity that will shield you from some of the assraping, but what tends to happen is the insurance entity tries to find any little reason to run away and leave you bent over with your pants down for the hospital to have its way with you.

If I had the power to fix things, first thing I would demand is some sort of book price and book time where all hospitals have to tell you how much it's going to cost and how long it's going to take for every single thing they do. You should be able to login to some site, tell it what kind of service you want and get multiple bids on your request. If you're not in a position to be able to do that, you can delegate to someone you trust who can.

I'm not holding my breath. If I can help it, I avoid the medical system here like the plague it is and do my best to avoid the preventable things that send most people into it (like weight and smoking). If I need to visit a hospital, I'll buy a plane ticket and do some medical tourism.

More fixit type things I would do. If access to medical care in some rural region gets too thin or scarce, the region is declared an entrepreneurial medical zone and the barriers to entry for providing medical services gets lowered way down until people are once again getting medical services. Want to be a doctor but don't have the license? If nobody else in say, W Virginia wants to be a doctor, well, go ahead and try being one yourself. Something is better than nothing, I say.

The other fixit thing I would do is ask what kind of medical plan could be realistically put together for something that costs $30/mo. Sure it wouldn't cover much, probably only accidents, but again something is better than nothing. Government could serve a role to set standards and make things uniform.


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## Sweetpeaa (Jun 22, 2021)

I live in Canada in a province (Ontario) that has a healthcare system that has taken a hit from years of under funding and cuts. The doctors are excellent however it's the amount of funding that creates the issues within the system causing the waits, delayed diagnosis and immediate and inappropriate discharges of people recovering from surgery.

Let me tell you a story, I had surgery on a tumor in my parotid gland when I was 23. Five hour surgery and quite complex. Though the surgical technique was excellent but there was still huge the problems post-operatively. I was given less than 30 minute of recovery time. I spent ten minutes in the post op room (just coming out of the surgery) and then 20 minutes in some other part of the hospital quickly rushed. I briefly talked with the surgeon for less than seemingly five minutes who gave me a post op appointment within one month. The nurse then discharged me. Most people in other countries who have had this surgery in the U.S and even the U.K spend time in the hospital recovering - I never got the chance.

I had to call a cab and spend the night in a motel before I had to back home (3 hour drive). I parked my car in the hospital parking lot over night so I had to pay that overinflated parking bill in the morning after taking another cab from the motel back to the hospital. I was numb around the incision for the first 18 hours but on the drive back this is when I started having trouble with my wound both in pain and bleeding. I was also never given a drain tube either (most people who have had this surgery have a tube inserted). I ended up getting a hematoma and an infection in my wound. within the week. I was given zero instructions for post wound care and had to go to my local hospital for help, draining and treatment of infection. This was all the result of hospital cuts and poor provincial funding of healthcare. This type of thing in the largest drawback we face in the Canadian system.


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## Kornula (Jun 27, 2021)

"universal" health care is all around a bad idea.  We already have seen how poorly the US government has been running health care for the Millitary.. why would we want that?   Plus, the biggest problem would be:  Insurance companies, Medical supply companies and Pharma.   - Even if we started out with  a Health care plan that made sure those assholes could not bleed everyone dry, they would within 10 years make sure to reverse that to the point we would be paying 80% of our income just to support them. That alone is reason enough to keep Health Care out of the hands of the  goverment.


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## Had (Jun 27, 2021)

I'll say this about universal health care, if your young and don't mind waiting a week it's nice. But if your older and the level of care matters then private health care is gonna be much better off for you.

Private health care is like dealing with a shady businessmen who's always trying to get more out of you.
where as universal health care will kick you out if they need the bed.



Kornula said:


> Plus, the biggest problem would be:  Insurance companies, Medical supply companies and Pharma.


I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with the Us's health care systems if they made Insurance pay out, but as it is they don't. You can get shit that's meant to be covered and they will only pay 10% of a bill in a thousands, at that point your literally better having put the money in savings and paying for it yourself. The idea Insurance companies act in good faith rather than taking money is just untrue.


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