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Comment by cryoshon | Hacker News Reader

>The questionnaire asked filers what led them to seek bankruptcy protection... About three in five said unmanageable medical expenses played a role. A little more than two-thirds cited a drop in income.

there you have it: the US healthcare system is driving responsible people into poverty, especially when paired with stagnant or falling income.

the solution is socialized universal healthcare. we will also need to re-create the social safety net somehow in a new and vastly expanded role. to be clear, silicon valley doesn't have a role to play here, aside from paying their taxes.

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I'm for universal healthcare, but the article specifically says that these are people who are in precarious financial situations already - any sudden expense could be enough to throw them into insolvency. Unsurprisingly, many of them are developing health problems at that age, which is the sudden expense that was too much.

sure. but consider that people have to spend money on healthcare over the course of their lives, too.

having that money in the bank might help prevent future bankruptcies.

> to be clear, silicon valley doesn't have a role to play here, aside from paying their taxes.

1) SV companies are some of the biggest tax dodgers

2) SV companies are also some of the biggest drivers of economic inequity and tearing down these social safety nets that generations before us fought tooth-and-nail for

3) SV companies, like Facebook, are also the biggest drivers of our cultural decay, which feeds and accelerates these disturbing macro societal trends

> to be clear, silicon valley doesn't have a role to play here, aside from paying their taxes

I was with you up until there....what's the thinking behind that part?

I think the parent might be arguing that this should all be government-run/funded, like in European social democracies. Tech has been increasingly moving into middleman spaces like health insurance, which only exacerbates the problem.

privatization won't fix the problems that privatization caused.

likewise, our society can't use software alone to solve our socioeconomic problems.

note: this is not because software is incapable of being part of the solution. far from it. but software is not about to rectify these issues without a political will to do so, which is separate.

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