Comment by lend000 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lend000 | Hacker News Reader

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> Imagine if our (USA) govt allowed us to buy gas (fuel, petrol) with lead in it, ignoring the long term impact of lead in the environment.

Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not. You cannot say that my choice to get fat infringes on anyone's freedoms more than you are infringing on my freedom by preventing me from eating what I choose. It's not a characteristic of a free society. Pure democracy is mob rule. We might as well ban gay marriage, too, because there are more people who don't like it and claim it infringes on their rights than there are people who want to get gay marriages (see how that can be twisted the other way?)

Lead has a quantifiable effect that directly infringes on the rights of others -- eating junk food does not.

Well, if you have to receive public assistance because of your bad eating habits, then that's a "quantifiable effect" on my pocket book.

Under Obamacare, their increased health care costs also costs everyone (in part because Obamacare is the worst of all worlds -- it would be difficult to intentionally design something worse).

I agree with both comments, but those problems have other solutions.

I always wonder how a group of people can come together and made a bad decision.

I mean, if one person makes a bad decision, you can say, OK, we all make mistakes, but a room full of smart? people...

As I understand it: Good ideas come from individuals. Good sorting of ideas comes from a crowd. Trying to get a crowd to make good ideas is apparently not very functional.

As someone who was uninsurable before Obamacare, no, it is not the worst of all worlds.

The worst of all worlds is when an otherwise-healthy 37 year old can't buy insurance because he had his gallbladder out in his early 20s. Which is what we had before obamacare.

I worked in insurance for over five years. "Universal insurance" is the worst possible way to try to make sure all citizens have access to medical care. There are other proven systems that are vastly better.

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