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Comment by alfromspace | Hacker News Reader

Similar thing happened to a good friend of mine. I don't recall the exact numbers, but she got a raise from something like $11.50 to $13/hr. Suddenly no longer qualified for the pretty nice state Medicaid plan, and had to pick up some godawful high deductible, high premium plan that covers virtually nothing from the Obamacare marketplace. She pays at least $150/month for it in premiums, is nowhere near the deductible, and so far it's refused to cover an MRI two doctors have ordered for her. Plus she lost dental and vision coverage - just had to pay $300 out of pocket for a cleaning and x-rays.

Something's very wrong when making more money makes you poorer and less healthy.

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> Something's very wrong when making more money makes you poorer and less healthy.

Yes, what's wrong is cut-off thresholds (or just phaseouts that, when totalled across programs, exceed $1 lost benefits for each $1 of additional income.) It's one of the things motivating UBI, since then all the phaseout happens in one place, by way of progressive marginal tax rates.

Why not tackle the origin of the issue instead of subsidizing it? That just gives more money to the people who are now able to charge more.

It's the same argument to raise minimum wage that'll apply to increasing UBI. I don't see it being the correct avenue to have long-standing progress.

> Why not tackle the origin of the issue instead of subsidizing it?

UBI is addressing the root of the issue I pointed to, with healthcare specifically, though, for the same avoiding thresholding reason that UBI serves for aid generally, public baseline healthcare should be universal and not income qualified.

I've seen this time and time again where someone who was just under the threshold to be cut off, would intentionally not work extra hours, or try for a raise because unless they doubled their income, they end up losing a lot more money than the free benefits make up.

If you make 20k a year, and the cutoff for benefits is 22k, the second you make $22,001 you lose all benefits and are left to fend for yourself.

There should be a better sliding scale to assist those who do want to better themselves without de-incentivizing them to do better because of the fear of losing everything.

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