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Comment by dv_dt | Hacker News Reader

Universal healthcare is cast as a 'populist' measure in the US. But if you look at data of cost of healthcare for nations applying universal healthcare vs those who do not in developed nations, India might rationally look at it as an economic efficiency measure.

Agricultural supports also can be looked at with a political filter, but the US provides government back agricultural insurance as a positive economic measure. Otherwise there may be a dwindling population of farmers and farming companies and increased food instability. One could argue about private vs publically funding these stabilization and boosting measures but it's much simpler/stabler to provide some forms long term guarantees via gov't policy than hoping a private market does it and does it correctly (without wiping out or consuming their customers). Are all these measures the same? No, but you have to look deeper than populist bad, private markets good.

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Isn't universal healthcare that all people and communities have the same access to healthcare? India's population is 1.3 billion and this says it will cover 500 million people. So, it doesn't cover all people and communities. It covers some part of the population.

Let's say Obamacare covered only a specific section of US what would have happened then?

To clarify my stand here, I am in favor of Universal Healthcare but not this.

Edit: I saw your edit on agriculture later. So, let me count that out too. We should do everything to support agriculture but the whole policy is skewed towards grains and every bump happens helps to ingrain the fact that grains good but vegetables bad. Do we really want that? So, I am in favor of a policy which works for all and not for specific sections which at least Indian laws tend to do.

The ACA did only cover a section of the US. 27 million were (are?) uninsured under the ACA.

https://www.kff.org/uninsured/fact-sheet/key-facts-about-the...

I don't know the right answer on specifics of agricultural policy. I wish grains were less emphasized in US agricultural supports - but I also acknowledge that there is a built up knowledge base, and capital momentum around grains and the efficiency of food systems (as a total system around citizen health), isn't trivial. You have to trade off energy->food, caloric efficiency, and total health just to name a few factors.

I think this is a much better level of discussion than populist or not-populist.

In a lot of countries with universal healthcare it is provided by the government insuring the poorest and the unemployed, and requiring everyone else to insure themselves. The idea being that it gives those with the means who might want to pick and choose higher levels of coverage can do so, but nobody gets left behind.

Thank you for highlighting that.

Food Security bill provided coverage to 2/3rd of population which was estimated to be 850 million people.

This bill says it will cover up to 500 million people.

So there are 320 million people who are poor that they can't eat but not poor for health care. That is the question on inclusive-ness.

Though we have to see the full bill to actually find out what exactly is going on.

> Universal healthcare is cast as a 'populist' measure in the US. But if you look at data of cost of healthcare for nations applying universal healthcare vs those who do not in developed nations, India might rationally look at it as an economic efficiency measure.

You are using a bait-and-switch debate tactic. Nothing that you said disproves that claim that "Universal healthcare is a 'populist' measure"

That's not bait-and-switch. I'm claiming that populist or not populist is an irrelevant measure.

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