Comment by avgDev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by avgDev | Hacker News Reader

I am upset that any individual needs a GoFundMe page to get money for a treatment. However, I also know many people who simply make terrible life decisions such as lack of insurance, buy luxury cars/homes and generally live beyond their means. Then, when shit hits the fan they own nothing and have to rely on assistance. I would much rather have the government take the money from everyone then use it to fund healthcare. Most average people are not smart about money.

Also, I recently donated to a family member, even though the treatment she is receiving is in my opinion snake oil. There is 0 peer reviewed studies. I still have mixed feelings about it. I researched what other people experienced with the treatment and results were mostly negative. They sell hope.

I too have a chronic condition, and there are doctors who offer magic solutions for large sums of money. There is a doctor who claims he had the condition and treated himself. Then weeks later his website went up and he now offers the treatment for a tiny sum of like $13k. Desperate people will pay that money for having hope. It is sad imo.

In general regular doctors will be blunt and honest. Doctor needs to tell you that if there is no hope there is no hope and how much time you have or what you can expect. In the practices that operate in grey areas and provide treatments which are not backed up by science people are getting scammed. I have been to one of those places with a family member...everywhere you look they have quotes about hope and not giving up but then when it comes time to leave you are responsible for $3000 for a visit, of course no insurance will cover it. Makes me disgusted, as that money would be better spent trying to adapt to your new condition if possible.

I too had a hard time coping with my condition and honestly the US social safety net is pure garbage. Disability takes two fucking years to get a decision, and you will most likely need a lawyer. You could not even get healthcare before obamacare or pre-existing condition would not be covered. I lost a job and had to pay $600 for cobra insurance. Honestly, just thinking what I had to go through makes me want to go back to Europe.

Edit: Apologies that this turned into a rant.

One of the bars I go to, every other month or so seems to have a fundraiser for a regular at the bar.

I almost never donate unless I'm there the day of the fundraiser, or there's food involved. $10 spagetti dinner for instance.

I understand this person needs help. But in almost every case, I know this person. I know how much $$$ they spend on acohol a week. I know how they got fired from their job for not showing up. I know they blew their tax return in a week. I'm not a cold hearted person but I don't understand why others have to bail them out.

Should the fire department skip someone's house because they made the poor decision to have a christmas tree or because they didn't maintain/clean their fireplace or chimney?

Maybe after the same person lights their Christmas tree on fire for the 3rd or 4th time they should.

...but they don't

Yep, and it's all irrelevant because it's a silly comparison anyway.

I think it's fair to compare socialized healthcare to fire departments or public education. The case of donating money to a fund raiser is silly though. It's hard to know how much you might be "obligated" to donate even if you argue that the amount is more than 0.

A better comparison would be, if they are behind on their property taxes?

Should the trash man not stop at your house if you haven't paid your trash bill for the quartter?

Trash collection is a public safety issue. We can't have trash building up, attracting pests and spreading disease. If they don't pay the trash bill then the trash man should still stop at their house. But then the local government should place a lien on the property, and if necessary sell it at auction to settle the bill.

>I know how much $$$ they spend on acohol a week.

Are poor people not allowed to have fun?

>I know how they got fired from their job for not showing up.

Are depressed people not worthy of keeping alive? Do they not bring enough value to the table, so it's okay to just let them die?

>I know they blew their tax return in a week.

Is poor financial sense justification for not helping someone out that needs help?

I dunno, these all seem like kinda tenuous justifications for not giving. By all means, it's your money. I'm not telling you how to spend it. Just that I don't agree with the core idea that poor people should live like hermits, that you know everything about people's lives, that not being taught finance by anyone is a solid justification for not giving.

It seems rather post-hoc. Personally I don't think any of thse things should justify someone losing basic human rights like food, shelter, or health. This isn't to say the problem should be solved by private charity, it shouldn't. Can't, I would even say.

>Are poor people not allowed to have fun?

Not out of proportion with their income and expenses, no. You might as well ask "are middle class people not allowed to buy a Ferrari?" Of course they're allowed to, but they're going to have trouble raising money when they can't pay their mortgage.

>Are depressed people not worthy of keeping alive? Do they not bring enough value to the table, so it's okay to just let them die?

That's a pretty sweeping assumption, but to some extent what else are you going to do? If someone refuses to participate in society, it's not on me to bail them out. Otherwise I'd spend all my time on the streets of SF trying to fix people.

>Is poor financial sense justification for not helping someone out that needs help?

Yes, absolutely 100%, yes.

No one else is entitled to your money. It doesn't even matter how tenuous the reasons are. There don't need to be any reasons to not give someone money.

> justification for not helping someone out

We should help this person out. But giving him money clearly is not the best way, in fact it may seem like giving him money is only enabling his bad lifestyle choices.

Money is not the solution here.

Personal responsibility is a pretty simple concept: if you cannot afford necessities like food, shelter, and medical care (which are not "human rights" in the sense that you do not have the right to compel other people to perform the labor required to supply you with these things) then you should not be buying alcohol, especially not at marked-up prices for having someone serve it to you, and neither should you be blowing your tax returns on other discretionary items. Everything else is just excuses. Nobody should be prioritizing "having fun" over food and shelter, and those that do are not entitled to have their impulsive behavior subsidized by others.

>(which are not "human rights" in the sense that you do not have the right to compel other people to perform the labor required to supply you with these things)

Food, shelter, and medical care are absolutely human rights: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

>(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care

"Food, shelter, and medical care are absolutely human rights" NOT IN 'MURICA they are not.

/sad sarcasm as some feel this way

Is the UN going to step in and help ensure those rights are upheld? Of course not.

I wish they would and I also wish the UN would monitor elections in the USA.

The UN can say whatever they feel like but the notion of positive rights for able adults is arbitrary and unfounded. You aren't entitled to the care of society unless you uphold your part of the social contract and contribute in return.

Or in other words if you have a right to others' labor, then by not working you are violating their human right to yours, and therefore their obligations cease.

The end result of your line of thinking is that the disabled (who are unable to contribute) should be left to die or be executed.

Which is the way things are, unless the able care about them or the disabled able to convince the able to help them then yes they will be left to die or be executed.

>able adults

I already covered this. Children and the infirm lack the capacity to produce so they owe nothing.

Also do note that nowhere have I argued that the genuinely destitute should starve, even capable adults. But if you have the spare cash to throw away on being a regular at a bar, as in the scenerio at hand, then I have no sympathy.

>I already covered this. Children and the infirm lack the capacity to produce so they owe nothing.

How do you define "able enough to work"? What if someone has severe mental deficiencies but can still lift and move things? Can you determine with near certainty who is able enough to work and who is malingering?

These are not new problems, but your proposal is worse than the status quo.

Food, shelter, and clothing are needed to live but not a right, there is a difference that is lost on everyone including the often misinformed UN.

I mean, you can do both. I would argue it is the responsibility of a good and just society to take care of all its members. You should still try to feed, house and treat that person even after poor decisions, but you should also have systems and policies in place to help prevent those poor decisions in the first place.

System such as: - Keeping more of their own money via taxes for Employment Insurance when they lose a job. - Arming them with better decision making skills via education - Having a system for healthcare that works fro everyone, funded via taxes, such that having a job or money is not relevant to receiving lifesaving medical care.

>>I know how they got fired from their job for not showing up.

>Are depressed people not worthy of keeping alive? Do they not bring enough value to the table, so it's okay to just let them die?

This is an assumption that they didn't show up to work because of a depression bout. It could have been a myriad of reasons, with the possibility that none of them had anything to do with depression.

     I'm not a cold hearted person

Citation needed

Thats a personal attack, not allowen on hn. Please stop.

> I know this person. I know how much $$$ they spend on acohol a week. I know how they got fired from their job for not showing up. I know they blew their tax return in a week. I'm not a cold hearted person but ...

Well, you kind of are. That's basically of the definition of cold-hearted.

It's 100% your legal and moral right to not contribute to these fundraisers. You could even argue that the best course of action here is to be cold-hearted, but you should at least own it.

>I too have a chronic condition, and there are doctors who offer magic solutions for large sums of money. There is a doctor who claims he had the condition and treated himself. Then weeks later his website went up and he now offers the treatment for a tiny sum of like $13k. Desperate people will pay that money for having hope. It is sad imo.

If it's an FDA-approved treatment, then it's been vetted by peer-reviewed double-blind trials so it's unlikely to be snake oil.

If it's not an FDA-approved treatment, then I highly advise you to report them to the authorities because you stand to receive whistleblower rewards that are many, many times larger than the tiny sum of $13k.

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