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Comment by nordsieck | Hacker News Reader

> What solution do you propose?

Ban those people from emergency services.

Like there isn't enough gatekeeping going on with US "healthcare" already? Which is very likely one of the causes of this in the very first place.

I live in a country with universal healthcare. When I get sick or have an accident that requires urgent medical treatment, I'm wasting literally zero thought on "Can I actually afford this?", I just get the help I need and it won't leave me with massive debt.

I can't even imagine how depressing, and for some probably enraging, it must be to be in a situation of distress and pain, while having to consider if one can actually afford to get professional help, without having to pay off crushing debt for the rest of one's life.

The surprise here is how few people snap from this very apparent inhumanity going on.

This would not be a good measure of society.

The best measure of society is compromise and social valor. Those who have neither deserve none.

I can't tolerate the concept that people don't "deserve" basic things like health treatment based on their behavior. It's sick to me, and a hallmark of a sick society.

You are saying people deserve a certain level of care regardless of their harassing behavior while waiting for such care and that you are utterly intolerant of any disagreement.

A sick society is one that cannot handle minor disagreements.

A sick society is one that lets people suffer out of a desire for revenge.

A preference to not serve someone who has a malicious intent is not revenge.

Health treatment isn't really a basic thing. I find it really bizarre how people keep trying to write in more and more luxury goods as god-given rights.

Whenever I think of rights, it is things that society and other people must not do, rather than something that other people must provide for me.

Think of it as a duty. Love thy neighbour and all that.

Can you tolerate the concept that nobody "deserves" anything, and that decision-making should be based mostly on outcomes?

Are you willing to compromise your definition of who is deserving? If not, you're a hypocrite.

And whatever valor is, nobody agrees exactly. Building a society on such nebulous things is a great way to end up with some kind of extremist -ism.

> And whatever valor is, nobody agrees exactly.

You don’t get to extremism from tolerance and diversity. Acceptance of minor disagreements is a good thing.

How would you keep track of that, and confidently identify people who have been banned?

Ultimately, you're not going to completely keep out all the people banned all the time. Duty to treat exists for a reason: in an emergency, it's better for society if people get emergency treatment and sometimes the other bits (e.g. money) don't work out.

However, most people who consume emergency services, don't do so unconscious. Hospitals, EMS, etc. want to get paid, so you're going to be asked for an ID sooner than later.

Some people might not want to give ID, or just not have it on them. I don't know what hospitals do in this case currently, but it doesn't seem like a huge stretch to just make those people give fingerprints to continue treatment.

This[1] claims that 4 finger IDs from fingerprints are 99.9% accurate, which isn't perfect, but it's pretty good.

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1. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2004/07/nist-study-sho...

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