Hacker News Reader

Comment by lynnah | Hacker News Reader

Disheartening. Interesting article. We need to get healthcare uncoupled from jobs.

This is completely right. I don't think people realize how much tying healthcare to full time employment hurts people and slow innovation.

It makes people stick in bad situations and disadvantages small businesses both financially and in wasted time.

Health care has leeched a huge amount of wage growth from the economy, in businesses large and small.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-28/health-ca...

Well, in trade for health care ... yes. In the same way cars and TVs have "caused" a huge amount of debt.

Cars and TVs go down in price for the same feature set as technological improvements and nor efficient business models are created. Healthcare has gotten more expensive every year for the same features(ex, a physical, or treatment for the flu). That is where healthcare is leeching money out of the economy.

They haven't provided any improvements in service or products, they've just learned how to wring more money out of everyone

A very limited number of features have improved (e.g. if you have HepC). At the same time there has been massive price inflation for things that are marketed as "improvements" without convincing evidence of actually being better (e.g. nexium vs prilosec, many medical devices).

First, cars haven't gone down much in price. Advanced in quality, sure. Gone down in price ? Hardly, at least in my experience. About 8-14 months net pay. TVs have gone up massively, mostly because flatscreens make ridiculous TVs possible. A CRT screen just can't be big. 50" is ridiculously large for a CRT, and anything under 40" is just unusable, so there just wasn't much difference between the cheapest and the most expensive screen in the 90s. Then, when plasma screens came, the prices for the top end went utterly ridiculous. But in the 90s you just couldn't spend a month's pay on a (single) TV. Now, 32000$ screens are in every electronics store (who do they sell these to I often wonder).

But the thing is, eliminating labor from healthcare seems to just be impossible to do in a responsible manner. So their prices go up with specialist labor prices. And yes, those have not exactly gone down. As for actual prices for basic things, I do get the impression they've gone down. Not by a lot, but 20-30% over a decade or two ? Certainly.

>TVs have gone up massively, mostly because flatscreens make ridiculous TVs possible.

Your assertions about price movements sound rather curious as they appear nearly the opposite of what is obtained by people whose job it is to measure these things. https://fee.org/media/17509/prices2-1.png

https://fee.org/articles/why-large-screen-tvs-are-affordable...

Looking at that article, they are comparing same-for-same tv sizes, and essentially saying that the 40" TVs are really cheap now.

I'm saying the biggest TVs (the ones that everybody seems to buy, like 100" and up) are far more expensive than the biggest TVs used to be 20 years back.

Also that article argues for competitive private healthcare. We've tried that. We know where that leads. Trust me, you don't want that.

It also comes with such insightful statements as this one: "Consider each product or service shown. College is heavily subsidized, regulated, and exclusionary, and the costs are soaring."

Yes this whole student loan thing we keep hearing about ... nothing to do with anything, right ?

It is an interesting way of seeing it. The way I look at it is that by not having universal healthcare, like the rest of the civilized world, is costing you a lot of money to sustain.

Take for example Lantus insulin. My gf needs about a box a month and in the US is at least $289.46. Here in Ireland without insurance you pay 40€ and we pay only 5 euro when properly insured. Actually you can apply for chronic disease card and it is free to you, those 5 euro cover all. Checking strips, insulin meter, needles, all covered. So it is not healthcare what is expensive, it is making money out of you.

The gig economy is already bad enough for workers but in the US it's even worse due to the health care situation. We should get rid of any advantages corporations have over individuals like health insurance.

Do you have the scourge of zero hour contracts in the US? Basically a person can be contractually obligated to work when demanded but with no guarantees of minimum hours or salary.

That's plain evil and should be illegal.

But the USA oligarchy want to keep it that way.

No, I think at-will employment is the principle that makes that illegal. No judge or jury would hold up such a contract as binding.

I don't think we call it that, but I don't see much diff between "zero hour contracts" and the random shift scheduling others have mentioned. One week you have 25 hours, the next week you have 5, but you don't know and can't plan around it. There may be a technical/legal distinction, but the practicality of it seems the same.

Absolutely. As an independent contractor with an autoimmune disorder, I make good money but it's still an absolute nightmare. I really hope the current administration doesn't bring back the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage for a pre-existing condition, because I can't imagine a reliable way to secure coverage that never has any gaps.

Amen. I'm making a career change and my wife is going bay to work and half our questions about a new job... healthcare benefits, not necessarily the better career choice...

There's a very reasonable proposal right here that would do it: https://berniesanders.com/medicareforall/ It could happen in a few years. Something to look forward to. :)

We need to stop importing children and adults until we make sure all current citizens have jobs. Not everyone has cancer nor needs healthcare. The truly broke get it for free. Only thing not covered is cosmetic dentistry like non silver fillings and partial dentures and brand name medication.

I hear immigration come up a lot when healthcare does, but most homeless in the US are US citizens suffering from mental disorders. From the numbers I've read, immigrants tend to be the most economically productive compared to US citizens of the same economic class.

That said, I think it'd be cheaper to provide preventative care for free than it would be to cover ER visits for the same number of uninsured people. Tends to be cheaper and a bit more humane.

Our system is such a disaster, even "preventative care" can be a wolf in sheep's clothing. There's basically nothing to disincentivize doctors or pharma from aggressively selling drugs and procedures that give no benefit or even cause harm.

How about we just vote for single payer? Simple. The truly broken end up homeless in the end.. unless by magic you find section 8. And then there is the paperwork, the miles and miles and miles of paperwork. And then, soon, there will be the work means test. No medical if you don't work. Got cancer? Too bad, work. The only positive is that it equalizes medicaid with the working stiff... which might bring about single payer faster.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com