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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

I feel like the practical effect of this is that you're just subsidizing all those people that use credit cards to get frequent flyer miles. Stores raise their prices because most people use credit cards, so you're paying for that no matter what. Might as well get some frequent flyer miles.

Having said that, I'm shocked that you don't get monthly statements from your health insurance company that say "hey you bought a lot of potato chips and ice cream, pay us a dollar extra a month." It's coming, though, I'm sure.

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Many stores have lower prices for cash customers, sometimes significantly, so I could just as easily say that credit card customers subsidize my lower prices. Free "miles" are nice (if you fly), but cash is always more valuable than scrip.

Offering lower prices to cash customers usually violates the agreement between the merchant and the card network.

That was never the case AFAIK. “Discount for cash” was prevalent before the rule change in January 2013 which allowed surcharges on credit card transactions.

https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/merchants/get-support/mercha...

The miles are paid from selling your data, not the processing fees. That's why higher net worth people get better rewards.

I don't think they make very much money at all from selling your info. The banks that issue credit cards make most of their money from interest and interchange charges (what the bank charges the merchant for a person using the card - varies from 0-2%)[1]. Rewards are what the pay people to use their card and they hope to make them up with the former methods.

Do you have a reference on how much they make from selling data? Do banks release such info on their annual reports?

[1]https://www.valuepenguin.com/how-do-credit-card-companies-ma...

If there was a cost to eating terrible, we would have less to lose from this virus.

Hypertension, diabetes, obesity? Aren't these all costs of eating terribly?

yes, great point. But, the bill isn't due til you're ~65+. It takes patience to think "unhealthy eating is more expensive than it appears because present-value for old-age healthcare costs aren't included".

The bill was due far before 65 for my mom who eats very unhealthy. There is a lot of daily pain and suffering caused by obesity and an increase in preventable health issues that need to be treated.

Back in 2008 or 9 or whatever, they thought they should write the ACA so that the only factors were age and smoking status.

And now there's lots of people that don't want private insurance at all (or whatever it is they mean by Medicare for all).

So apparently it's not entirely hopeless.

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