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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

I would say it is dissatisfaction with the government's contract with the citizenry, combined with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing. So people who can leave for somewhere that more closely aligns with their values are doing just that.

I have family here and I love the United States, I'm staying, and I hope we can make some more progress, but I totally understand why some people don't want to wait that long.

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Right, our government is now setup to allow minority rule unfortunately. I can't foresee us moving forward when states beyond the coasts are insistent on moving backwards to a mythical idealized time.

My main reason for wanting to leave right now is the state of healthcare. I already have one "preexisting condition" out of my hands, it's called sleep apnea. I'm in shape, it's just a matter of my anatomy. My costs are relatively affordable (aside from never bothering with another sleep study since that's seen as not covered), a couple hundred dollars a year. Maybe a large purchase of a new machine every 5 to 10 years.

But I realize that even though I'm saving large chunks of money thanks to America paying more, I'm one terrible illness away from having it wiped out. I'm not a gambler by nature, so it doesn't really appeal to me. Pay me less, give me subsidized healthcare, real time off, etc. Basically, treat me more humanely.

I could care less about money I may lose due to tragedy at any moment. Especially when that crazy inner state minority will simple lambast me for not planning appropriately for my illness regardless of how much of my savings I pour into it (why didn't you save a million dollars for your ongoing cancer treatment you bum?).

Do you not have health insurance? Why would a single illness cost you a million dollars?

Looking at his comment, he said 'Terrible illness' which implies something more severe than just the flu.

Right, and there's no guarantee I'd be able to keep my job (and hence my health insurance) during that scenario.

Having my illness would cause the rates for health insurance to sky rocket for my company the following year. I wouldn't blame them for letting me go since that would cause hardship for the rest of my coworkers.

Because of his preexisting condition. Even if insured, when all of the ACA prohibitions against preexisting condition exclusions are wiped away as the political wind is portending then the OP will be one illness away from a financial wipeout.

When I was in my 30s I had a blood test come back with what the doc said was moderately high cholesterol (185?). From that point on all of my policies excluded illnesses, diseases, treatments and medicines that were in any way connected with high cholesterol.

> Because of his preexisting condition. Even if insured, when all of the ACA prohibitions against preexisting condition exclusions are wiped away as the political wind is portending then the OP will be one illness away from a financial wipeout.

Honest questions:

Weren't pre-existing condition exclusions only relevant if the condition was diagnosed when the person was uninsured and only when that person was buying an individual policy (so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy)?

Also, even if the condition was diagnosed while the person was uninsured, what would happen if they subsequently spent a long period of time insured under a group policy? When the person went back to the individual market, they'd have a long paper trail of being insured from the group policy. Would a new individual insurer really be able to figure out that, years ago, the person was uninsured years ago when they were diagnosed?

> Weren't pre-existing condition exclusions only relevant if the condition was diagnosed when the person was uninsured and only when that person was buying an individual policy (so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy)?

I can't speak for anyone other than my Floridian self but my hypercholesterol diagnosis was while insured on a group policy and became a pre-existing excludable condition when I set up shop on my own and bought an individual policy.

> so you could still get coverage through an employer group policy

There was no employer to offer me group coverage. It was my way or the highway.

> Also, even if the condition was diagnosed while the person was uninsured, what would happen if they subsequently spent a long period of time insured under a group policy? When the person went back to the individual market, they'd have a long paper trail of being insured from the group policy. Would a new individual insurer really be able to figure out that, years ago, the person was uninsured years ago when they were diagnosed?

I hear you, but really all it takes is a question on the insurance application to find out the info. If I'm asked I answer honestly not only because it's a felony to do otherwise but because false answers on insurance policy questionairres is an easy win for the insurance company that wants to avoid claim payment. If I were to lie though it wouldn't be a walk in the park but finding out the adverse info is definitely do-able and so long as preexisting conditions can be excluded there's a tremendous monetary incentive to find this stuff out. They can tap into the place that tracks health issues for life insurance companies (the Medical Info Bureau) to find out even more or simply write all of my physicians and ask them directly.

My wife is in the same boat. She has a thyroid issue and her policy came with an exclusion for everything associated with hyperthyroid. This is pretty much the entire book of morbid cardiovascular conditions.

At this point I'm job locked: If I leave (or am laid off) the individual market will exclude the hell out of both of us.

> combined with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing

Different people have different definitions of "progress". Your definition of progress might not align with mine. That doesn't mean I am not interested in progress, just that I believe we should be progressing in a different (possibly even diametrical) direction than you believe we should be progressing.

Clearly OP means agreeing with his agenda here.

Anything contrary to his agenda is not progress, but going backwards. "around half" is a veiled hit on people who voted for President Trump.

No, I just mean progress. We have data, we could be using it to improve. But instead, we watch other countries leapfrog us in quantifiable ways while we point fingers at each other and accuse 'the other side' of being the real problem. And we are so enamored with ourselves being special that we won't even consider ideas from other countries which have successfully dealt with similar problems. It is very frustrating. And I don't care which side politically you are on, you are only part of the problem from my perspective if you care more about winning than actually making better policy.

That's fine to say, but it ignores the problem of minority rule. If we all take a big vote, and most people want Progress(A), you don't have the ethical right to jump up and down or put a gun to the rest of our heads insisting that we instead do Progress(B).

Maybe Progress(B) is a lovely thing for you. The rest of us, however, don't like it very much, and didn't vote for it.

If Progress(A) means taking stuff from a minority group, then sorry you don’t have the right for that either, even if your plan is to equally distribute it for the “good of everyone”. For some people who went through the hell of communism it is the opposite of progress.

>If Progress(A) means taking stuff from a minority group, then sorry you don’t have the right for that either,

Hold on, let me check something...

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

I rather think we do have that right. Human rights for minorities are indeed a thing, but they aren't a thing that gives you (or anyone else) a fully general right to rule over the majority, nor a fully general right to treat the government as illegitimate when it uses its constitutionally enumerated powers to go against your ideas.

> it uses its constitutionally enumerated powers to go against your ideas.

So let me clarify your position a bit: you do support immigration law enforcement, correct?

Also where did you get the idea that the majority of people in the US gets to decide the policy?

>So let me clarify your position a bit: you do support immigration law enforcement, correct?

Yes, of course. If enforcing the law as written involves doing Bad Things, the law should be changed, but if we aren't democratically deciding to change it, then it's on us what it involves.

Mind, there's been plenty of support for the DREAM Act for quite a while now, so...

>Also where did you get the idea that the majority of people in the US gets to decide the policy?

The basic ethical grounds for representative democracy, without which the US government has no legitimacy, no matter how many pieces of paper anyone waves around.

Majority rule is not “the basic ethical grounds for representative democracy”. US was set up as a constitutional republic specifically to limit the simple majority mob rule.

>Majority rule is not “the basic ethical grounds for representative democracy”.

Yes, it very much is.

>US was set up as a constitutional republic specifically to limit the simple majority mob rule.

The US was set up to preserve the power of the rural landowner class. It wasn't intended to be a representative democracy initially, and has only moved imperfectly towards representative democracy over time, with great struggle.

Rule by a minority elite claiming the mantle of national authenticity as its exclusive possession is, ethically speaking, far less legitimate than that of plain, old-fashioned majorities.

Everyone wants progress. Just not everyone agrees with you on what progress looks like.

Blaming the people is never productive; instead engage with the people. Don't forget to throw out the bums in office (see, mid-term elections).

>with recent evidence suggesting that a good chunk, say half, of the population has no interest in progressing.

Has it crossed your mind that this half might not see what you want as progress but instead destructive?

While this is a valid question, most people understand the fundamental concept of "disagreeing", even if they've considered the opposition and rejected it (perhaps justly, perhaps unjustly, by some metric). Therefore, I'd try to expand on this thought - your single sentence is a little hostile and curt. It doesn't really lead anywhere.

If you simply see it politically, then sure. I see progress as a fairly objective goal. We may differ on how, but surely we can agree on the facts and what the definition of better is.

A policy that's objectively better for one person might be objectively worse for another. I know several people whose health insurance became worse (more expensive for less coverage) due to Obamacare.

I believe that the government should focus strictly on macro outcomes. I.e big goals, like "more people covered by medical insurance" or "average life expectancy increase", etc. It's impossible at a high level to ensure that every last person gets a better outcome.

I'd also say that if anybody really did end up with more expensive policies with worse coverage, that's a continuing fault with our insurance companies. If they were functioning correctly, then an increase in policy premium after ACA would indicate that the consumer was not accurately assessing their own risk previously and thought their coverage was far more extensive than in reality. I haven't yet found an actual example of someone who really did get less coverage that cost more. Inevitably they are comparing an old plan that had basically no actual, effective coverage to one with far fewer loopholes.

>I'd also say that if anybody really did end up with more expensive policies with worse coverage, that's a continuing fault with our insurance companies. If they were functioning correctly, then an increase in policy premium after ACA would indicate that the consumer was not accurately assessing their own risk previously

Nope, it means that the risk pools changed and now everyone has to pay significantly more because they are paying for people with existing conditions. The only people that didn’t end up paying more are the ones who receive subsidies they didn’t previously.

The old plans were better if you didn’t have a condition because you were pooled with cheaper people to care for. Loophole reduction only plays a small part in that.

ACA changed health insurance from being insurance into a country-wide health program for already sick people. Insurance is a terrible vehicle for that. It was a horrible compromise and single payer would have been worlds better once you’re already down the path of that level of government intervention.

I see using nuclear to the fullest extent possible to displace all coal, gas, and wind generation as progress.

This view is directly at odds with the “progressive party” in the US that is convinced the only way forward is prayers that we will come up with an energy storage solution to make up for the instability of wind/solar while continuing to allow nat gas and coal in the interim while climate change marches on.

In my views, every time the government increases taxes and starts more individual and corporate welfare programs, that is the opposite of progress because it’s very rare that the government executes something effectively with self sustaining income.

Cap and trade is progress. Random bans on industries are not. And on and on.

So yes, we can certainly agree on facts, but I don’t think many people can agree on what the definition of better is because that’s definitely subjective.

Cortez and Sanders were elected on socialist platforms and they want nothing but massive government expansion of welfare programs that they see as “progress” and “better”. Their proposals so far have massive funding flaws and/or are ripe to fail in a short period of time (in my view) so I don’t see them pushing progress or anything better.

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