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Comment by reasonablemann | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why there's so much resistance to having everybody save a huge amount of money while at the same time allowing everybody to be healthier. Boggles the mind.

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Because nobody credible is claiming that everyone will save money. Reports vary, some show savings some show cost increases.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Part of it is distrust of government. Part of it is status quo. Part of it is belief they will be worse off in the new system. Part of it is not wanting to have to supliment other's heath care. Those are the real underlying reasons, as far as I can tell.

For me, it's that I can't think of anything the government really does a good job at while also controlling costs.

Really? For the most part, the government is pretty functional at all levels and while costs generally rise it seems like they do less so than compared to the privatized version.

I'm sure there are many cases where they do a bad job and costs rise, but I'd imagine the things government has done well and that keep costs somewhat okay far outweighs it and I also imagine you never hear about 99% of the stuff where things are humming along.

The good news is that government only needs to keep costs lower than the private system. That doesn't require a good job of controlling costs.

It's not as lucrative for some people that way.

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