Unemployment

[kandrathe]

Really? Because if you owned it, I suspect it would end up like retirement savings - something everyone things is a good idea, and most people do to some extent, but something which gets cut out or left out far more often than is rational, especially when times are tough. People are not good at predicting the future, even in a probabilistic sense. Everyone is too optimistic about their health care situation, until they get sick - at which point it's too late to change your mind.

A few things come to mind here. You cannot legislate away ignorance or stupidity. I've said before, a safety net is a good thing and helps people become self-sufficient faster. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and life is not always fair, or kind. The US has been trying to legislate away poverty for over a hundred years. It hasn't worked. We have just as many poor people today as when we started. They aren't as desperately poor, but they are still poor. We'd have been far better off putting that money into better birth control for poor families, and better education for poor children. You know... "Teach a man to fish..." Our billions and billions of tax money has taken the edge off of poverty, and it has also created multi-generational dependencies. It's this dependency that the progressives have used for political advantage to remain in power. Government run health care is just another step in locking in that dependency. So again. If government rationing works for health care, then why not government distribution of food, clothing, and housing? These are also staples of life that seem to be unfairly distributed.

People don't treat it as just one more bill. If you stop buying food, you starve. If you stop paying your rent, you live on the street. If you stop buying health insurance... well, nothing happens. Not immediately. So people risk it - even when that risk is irrational. Individually, 95% of people are fine. But 5% get caught out with some crisis or another, and the total social cost is higher than if they'd all just had universal health care.

If you stop care taking people, then people will be forced to think through these issues and take care of themselves. I know we just fundamentally disagree on this point. You think there should be laws that force people to do the right thing, and I think people should choose for themselves what is right, and suffer the consequences for their mistakes. For me, this is one of those freedom things. If we can truly realize the fruits of our labor, then we must also suffer the broken bones of our failures. Yes, failure has consequences. But, I think it is wrong to enslave everyone to prevent anyone from choosing wrongly and failing. It is always done for the most noble purpose; they only want to take away the bad choices, but eventually they end up taking away all the choices.

Sure, if you're lucky enough to get sick later, rather than earlier. What happens if you're 22, trying to make ends meet, you take a risky job in construction, and lose a limb? You don't have a "sizeable" lifetime of savings - maybe you had a few bucks you set aside. Maybe you have some insurance, but it doesn't cover everything. Or maybe you're not able to afford to insure yourself, to save extra for emergencies, and get every other bill paid on time.

Maybe some people are ignorant, or don't care enough to buy insurance. I know I made all the mistakes at 19 that you are talking about, and I ended up filing (medical) bankruptcy at age 20 after I was in a terrible accident. I discovered that I was not immortal. Had my scheme described earlier been in place, I probably would have had a cheap high deductible plan. I was glad to be out from under that debt, but later in life when I had the means I made a point of donating to that hospital until I had repaid what I had previously owed them.

I had a relative who used to work in Workers' Compensation. Even in Canada, where the medical bills are not an issue, the loss of income alone is crippling for many people. Getting sick sucks. How bad could it get with medical bills on top of things? Pretty ugly. People think these things won't happen to them. Individually, they're probably right. Collectively, they can't all be right.

I agree. Generally most people who are younger don't need as much health care, so in general, contributions to a HCSA will accrue over time. Again, some people will hit the safety net, and get back on their feet. Those who can no longer care for themselves won't be able to get back on their feet, and they will need to become wards of the state.

It's typically referred to as "welfare."

Yes, and if we can focus on helping only the people who need help, then our federal budget can be much smaller. We just need to dismantle the "Great Society" of Johnson, the "New Deal" of FDR, and the corruption of our Constitutional government going back to Wilson.