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Comment by wutbrodo | Hacker News Reader

I obviously think that Chaffetz's comment was roughly as idiotic as you'd expect from Jason Chaffetz (the high end of Healthcare costs are so exorbitant that any common luxury purchase you can think of completely pales in comparison).

But your comment conflates "one of the most expensive smartphones" with "having any connection to the digital world". No disagreement that connectivity is critical and that mobile devices are an efficient way to get there on a low income, but iPhones are definitely not. My mom doesn't have a working computer in her house atm, and her phone cost 200 dollars (or free with carrier subsidy). There's pretty much no reason to get an iPhone on purely functional grounds, just as there would be no reason to get a $700 Galaxy S7.

Though I should note that ios has moved downmarket when they started selling older models, which filled some of this gap.

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A second hand iphone would do just fine and would be cheap. 'Iphone' does not magically translate into $700 piece of hardware, it could easily be $50 or $100 when bought second hand or even free when a gift from a family member or even a stranger. Heck I know of some iPhones that have gone through 4 pairs of hands by now. Just because the first owner moves on to a newer and shinier model whenever they come out (talk about bad decisions...).

Yes, used iPhones are a lot cheaper, and since half the phones in America are iPhones it's very easy to find a used one.

People with little internet access don't have the tools to properly comparison shop, they're going to walk into an AT&T or Boost store and probably leave with what the salesperson is able to push on them. iPhones have always been available for around $200 with carrier subsidies, if I'm not forgetting an early period when it cost more.

Then there's the issue of older people using the term "iPhone" generically. Poor people overwhelmingly have Android phones (as evidenced by the massive disparity between the perceived iPhone market share in the tech bubble and reality), but it's all the same to Republicans.

No, it's not all the same to Republicans. They know poor people have Androids. Which is the whole point of this thread. Why do some poor people have an iPhone?

We live in a free society where the government doesn't have much control over how you live your life. Even though it's smarter for a budget-conscious consumer to buy a Moto G, some people won't, and there's nothing we can do about it. And with health insurance being expensive as it is, it's just lying to claim that poor people could buy their own health insurance if they would only drop their standard of living even further.

>I obviously think that Chaffetz's comment was roughly as idiotic as you'd expect from Jason Chaffetz

And that time Obama made a similar argument, you thought he was just as idiotic as well right?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/07/chaffetz-hit-for-...

Obama - In a lengthy answer, Obama speculated about someone making $40,000-$50,000 a year, who thinks an insurance option that costs $300 a month is too much.

Chaffetz - people should “invest in their own health care” instead of “getting that new iPhone.”

I get very different meaning from what they said, thus no I do not think what he said was 'just as idiotic'.

From the very article you are sharing : Chaffetz "conceded he didn’t make his remarks “as smoothly” as he could."

The argument is always the same, the idiotic part is when you need to convince an entire nation to sign up for your healthcare plan but instead blame people for having an iPhone.

Oh for the love of God, adults are trying to have a conversation here. Get out of here with that /r/politics, "there are only two sides and every conversation is about which is worse!!" bullshit. I don't follow the non-policy part of politics closely and don't remember those remarks of Obama's: if they were substantively similar to Chaffetz's, then yes, they were idiotic.

Grow up.

A few data points.

People become poor after buying stuff like iphones and often wouldn't improve their financial position by selling them.

People get expensive phones for cheap with contracts. If the problem is that family needs 400 per month in food stamps and 700 help affording health insurance which amounts to 13000 a year in help the extra 200 they paid for an iphone is a small thing.

People buy older phones for cheap or even get given them by family members who upgrade. I can buy an older iphone on craigslist for $40 right now.

In what sense are these data points?

That $200 iPhone comes with an expensive contract, that has a non-insignificant monthly cost.

And we all know the quote wasn't referring to second hand iPhones.

Why is it that you imagine that the hypothetical father can tell the difference between a used and a new iPhone held by the individual in line at the food bank?

Try giving a $50 android phone to your grandma (or your mother, for that matter) and see how many complaints and questions you get.

I gave up on giving Android devices to my family. They always replaced them with iPhones (used, typically).

Android isn't really more difficult to use than ios. And not 650 dollars more difficult.

This is just a rationalization to buy the more expensive version.

If you are poor, an iphone is a shitty use of your money when a Moto G4 exists.

Of course, this won't make or break a person, but if it's representative of their cost/benefit analysis in general, their spending could be a huge problem.

> Android isn't really more difficult to use than ios.

Having supported a variety of non-technical folks both in a business and family capacity, this simply isn't true.

Hell, even basic directions depend widely on the manufacturer - the OS may look and act totally different depending on whether it's a Samsung device or not.

I know a mentally challenged person who uses android just fine. Whatever learning curve there is, it's not worth an extra 650 dollars to a poor person.

Maybe it's worth extra money to a businessman who refuses to learn a slightly different UI, but he isn't asking for subsides to afford it.

If you apply to the same logic to all of a poor person's decision they'd go broke. Cooking it pretty hard. You need pots and pans and stuff. Better eat McDonalds every meal!

An extra $650? Android phones aren't free, and iPhone SEs are $400 out of pocket.

Quite a few Android phones out there might as well be free, especially once they hit the secondhand market.

I agree that it's no $650 difference, but it's certainly substantial.

All you said is that the OS is different, not that it's more difficult...

I hear this all the time "iOS is easier", yet no one ever provides any concrete examples.

Yeah, but we all know this stuff because we live on the internet. How much tech experience does the average homeless/poor person have when they buy their first phone (ie get their first internet access)?

Poor people aren't necessarily stupid. Seriously...

Experience != Intelligence

Phones are a luxury, what percentage of the poor demographic do you think can afford a smartphone? Much less, know how to operate something they've never had experience with.

What are you talking about?!

BILLIONS of people have smartphones. It's not such a new and expensive tech anymore.

Stay civil.

Around 2 billion people have cellphones (~30% of the population) which is a minority. Although, in the U.S 64% of those in poverty have a smartphone[1].

Maybe you confused my generality for locality. I'm talking in broad strokes, all over the world (not just the developed world).

[1] http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

Sorry if I came across a bit direct.

It's just that your own numbers show that 2/3 poor people own a smartphone, compared to 4/5 in general (in the US). That's not a luxury item by any definition. And you're not including the fact that people might have access to the Internet anyway, even if they don't own a smartphone. Or their friend might have a smartphone... Or they might have a kid who knows about smartphones. Or they see ads for a smartphone.

Get it?

I get it.

I was referencing poor people as a whole, not solely from the U.S.A.

On an article about healthcare costs in the US... I hope you understand why I got confused, sorry about that.

It's my bad. I used broad strokes where finer ones were needed.

Yea, but it doesn't help.

It's almost like it's not correlated at all... /s

But it is correlated, and not weakly either. I suspect the causation runs in both directions.

I've bought quite a few cheap Android phones and they have been uniformly terrible.

The last < £50 Android phone I bought as our flats have a doorbell that goes to a phone number.

Trying to use the browser or anything in it was a bad experience, it was just way too slow for the OS on it.

You can get a real phone instead, say, something like Samsung Galaxy J5, lowish end but strong enough, bit more expensive but not a lot. Especially if you find a used one. That will set you back $150 or so. You can go lower still with J3 and it is also good enough, $90 - in fact better than not that old S5 most of the time.

That is without considering carrier subsidies or used market. (So compares to $700 iPhone price.)

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