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Comment by marricks | Hacker News Reader

Why do Americans always have to play a zero sum game with human lives.

If a quarter of our country has the worst healthcare in the developed world that is unacceptable.

Answers like this are just begging us to give up our humanity.

I have made no statements about how things should be. I have lots of opinions about how things should be, which I don't share on HN.

I was making statements about how things actually are, since no discussion about how to make the world we want is likely to be meaningful or useful if there is not a shared view of what is first.

And what you focus on brings about thoughts of a zero sum game which I called out. You can safely assume I don’t agree with what you find most pertinent.

I think a country which lets some get rich off of other’s cancer is an abhorrent, indefensible, system.

I'm not seeing that out of his comment. I see him saying we spend a ton of money, and there's the implication that we could be spending that money better/differently. That doesn't imply a zero-sum game. It does imply that the money available for health care is not unlimited. That's pretty much a fact, though.

How do you incentivize smart people to go into cancer treatment instead of other careers? If they can't get rich treating cancer, talent will choose other fields where they can get rich. The market allocates funding to that which people find important. Health care is extremely important, so it gets a lot money thrown at it.

Countries other than the US exist. Doctors, health care workers etc are significantly less paid in Japan and yet they still exist.

The idea of 'market forces dictating absolutely everything' is proven objectively wrong by countries that still have a large amount of doctors despite being paid less. The market theory would posit that all of those doctors and what not would move to a country that pays them more but there are many, many other factors other than just pay.

> I think a country which lets some get rich off of other’s cancer is an abhorrent, indefensible, system.

lol

You are assuming that I believe many things which I do not.

You should just assume I'm a misanthrope who enjoys watching people suffer. I mean, it's not true, but lots of idiots assume it.

What fraction of your income goes to the third world?

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