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Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

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kayodelycaon

> If you can come up with $16k/year to cover medical expenses for a serious issue, you won't go bankrupt.

The US median income is $63k... $16k would be 25% of that.

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Now consider the percentage of income that is claimed in European countries with free healthcare. Hint, it's higher.

The difference is for people with no or low incomes as the tax is used to pay for these. Social security.

If you put away 10% of your income for retirement and emergencies, a $16k safety net would only take a few years to build with an income of $63k.

Indeed, and do you know what kills you faster and more reliably than lack of free/subsidized medical care?

Lack of food (9 days), and lack of potable water (72 hours). Since we seem to be leaning towards the opinion that the gov't needs to provide everything for us and we should have minimal/no responsiblity for our own sustenance, repair, or longevity, where's the Free Sh*t Army slogans for no-cost food and water?

The US had a pretty extensive foodstamps program. It still exists but is slowly getting killed off. Even so there are multiple states in which 20% of the population has their food paid for by the government.

That's a rather polemic way of talking about this topic. No one but a strawman actually talks about "free shit" or "no-cost", it is about social distribution of burdens for these extreme cases. Paying a reasonable price for drinkable water through i.e municipal water companies seems to fit your "responsibility" requirement. Paying 25% or more of your _yearly_ income for a medical bill because you had bad luck...not so reasonable in my opinion and has nothing much to do with "responsibility". And let's not pretend it is about no costs or free things, everyone is paying for it through taxes according to their means. Are you seriously suggesting to let someone on disabilities or social security starve to death cause those are essentially your "no-cost food and water" slogans. This notion of "having the government provide" shows the twisted view on government, it's not a separate entity the money comes from society, society is providing, is that such a bad thing for a society?

Food-stamp recipients and folks on social security are completely different classes of citizen. Firstly, we expect the food-stamp recipient to eventually get off of them and start providing for themselves. The social security recipient has paid into the system their entire life, and they are now entitled - by virtue of having lived long enough and paid enough in - to start withdrawing the money they've been coerced into depositing.

Interestingly enough, most economic studies of social security show that putting the same money into a low-risk index fund would've netted more gains, plus that money would've been available to the person with far fewer 'strings attached' (vis a vis able to be withdrawn earlier if desired, descendants/spouses able to withdraw in case of untimely demise, etc). Coerced gov't meddling, again, has proven to be the more-painful economic road to go down, as opposed to letting individuals choose what to do with what they've earned.

>food stamp receipients

>folks on social security

I notice that you call some people "folks" while others are simply "receipients". Do you think poor people are human?

Certainly. But humans are supposed to be responsible for their own outcome, more often than not. America is the land of opportunity. Many people who are otherwise more than able to work, choose to Trustifarian it up and be a pimple on the backside of society when they COULD choose to be productive members. I am perfectly happy to pay taxes and lend a hand up. It's when I'm obligated to give a hand-out that I get cranky.

So you don't actually know of anyone who is abusing the system in the way that you claim? You're... just making stuff up?

I thought this "argument" around welfare queens had its day in the 90s...not the 2020s

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