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Comment by throwaway59609 | Hacker News Reader

I live in a state with universal healthcare through mandatory insurance that's 30% of my income. Guess what? The state doesn't recognize this kind of therapy, and the insurance pays out only for whatever the state recognizes (and there is no free market of healthcare insurance), so I have to pay everything out of my pocket. And it costs the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That's alright, that's new experimental therapy and it will improve, you might say. Well, they don't even pay anything for my ADHD treatment because the state says adults can't have it, it's children's disease. That's what I get for 30% of my income - nothing.

The antistate libertarian "propaganda" is working so well because it's not propaganda but the only way to get treatment. At least they let me pay for the drugs myself, I'd probably kill myself if I couldn't get them just because the state said so.

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First of all, you're moving the goalpost since the conversation was about the cost of professionals, not the availability of treatment.

> The antistate libertarian "propaganda" is working so well because it's not propaganda but the only way to get treatment. At least they let me pay for the drugs myself, I'd probably kill myself if I couldn't get them just because the state said so.

It only works for the very small fraction that can pay “he equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars” worth of treatment, which means that for pretty much everyone it's literally as if state said that they cannot get them! In the richest country in the world, some people can't even afford drugs that are decades old, call that a way to get treatment.

Yes, indeed. So what's your suggestion? Nobody should get it? Same with the ADHD treatment too? That's also unavailable to many due to the prices - I pay $100/month for the drugs I desperately need, that's 10% or more of income for at least 30% of the local population where I live.

I'm not moving any goalpost. The issue is that the state won't pay for the treatment, which includes the professionals who perform it.

> Yes, indeed. So what's your suggestion? Nobody should get it? Same with the ADHD treatment too?

No, quite the opposite: everyone should get it, and to get there the affluent should use their money to help this cause, not sidestep the problem for themselves and be fine with the status quo not moving for the commoners.

The affluent are a very, very minor group here. The state policy is not in any way controlled by them. It's the "commoners" and the populist socialist parties they vote for (that have way over 30% of the parliament and lead the government) who want to and do preserve the status quo even though it's actually bad for them. They label the affluent ones, who indeed would like exactly what you're suggesting, as dangerous liberals that will destroy the traditional values of this country.

ADHD is a classic example, it's actually being discussed in the media right now - the drugs and therapy are labeled as one of the dangerous liberal ideas, the mainstream suggestion is stricter parenting, which of course includes beating the children - that's a traditional value here as well ("we survived it, they will survive it too", right?).

My suggestion to Americans - don't let the "commoners" use the state to capture your healthcare like it happened here. Countries like ours need you to develop new treatments. System like ours will never produce anything and will never move forward without your example. If you adopt this kind of system, the world is fucked.

The GP mentioned cost, but I read it as a philosophical objection to the state forcing its insertion into the activity:

> My problem with the current push for this type of therapy is the requirment that it be done by professionals charging hundreds or thousands of dollars. […] I remain resistant to this insertion of the state into what should be my right to use my own mind the way I see fit.

I read this as, "I should not be required to use these in a set and setting sanctioned by The State, especially when that set and setting costs thousands of dollars that my needs don't require."

You were the one that moved the goalposts, claiming that the lack of universal healthcare is "the problem at stake here."

And then when the person helpfully rebutted that point—no, it's not costs, but the fact that universal healthcare isn't a panacea, citing their individual experience—you complain that _they_ are moving the goalposts.

At the end of the day, psychedelics sit at the intersection of personal responsibility, medicine, and social order. We can argue whether and how they should be allowed, whether they have medicinal value, and what the impact on society is, at large. But those discussions are orthogonal to the questions about the optimal configuration of medical care and health systems.

If you want to wave the banner of universal healthcare, feel free. You might even get some of us to agree with you. But don't come into a political discussion about personal sovereignty and tell people "you don't actually need sovereignty, you just need more state."

That's just insulting.

> read this as, "I should not be required to use these in a set and setting sanctioned by The State, especially when that set and setting costs thousands of dollars that my needs don't require."

> You were the one that moved the goalposts, claiming that the lack of universal healthcare is "the problem at stake here."

One either use a money argument and I'm allowed to refute it, or don't. But you cannot tell me I'm moving the goalpost for responding to the argument.

If you remove money from your rephrasing of the argument you get “I should not be required to use these in a set and setting sanctioned by The State” which is different: I don't mind if you really want to self medicate, nor does the state (as illustrated by the fact that there's no felony or crime for self medication), but in average it's a pretty poor idea: you're way more likely to harm yourself than achieve your goal. If Steve Jobs died because he wasn't smart enough to make the proper medical call for himself, so can you.

If you really want to do it “because freedom”, then go for it, but if you do it because there's money at stake like OP, then you're not actually doing it freely, you're doing it under economic constraint and blaming “too much state” is delusional.

> But don't come into a political discussion about personal sovereignty and tell people "you don't actually need sovereignty, you just need more state."

The argument being made was, in short, “it's too fucking expensive, fuck the state” when the reality is that it's expensive because the state doesn't want to intervene, which is what I pointed out. Also, “personal sovereignty” is an oxymoron unless you're a king or some autocrat. Sovereignty is a collective process, it's “we the people” not “Me myself and I”.

> At the end of the day, psychedelics sit at the intersection of personal responsibility, medicine, and social order. We can argue whether and how they should be allowed, whether they have medicinal value, and what the impact on society is, at large. But those discussions are orthogonal to the questions about the optimal configuration of medical care and health systems.

The comment I responded to at the beginning was complaining about the cost of health professional, it wasn't at all about psychedelics in particular, and that's the argument I responded to.

> That's just insulting.

Nobody insulted anyone, please don't play the “this is offensive” card.

Thanks for the considered response. I appreciate it.

Fair play for responding to the money argument. That's fine. But redirecting that it's _only_ about money misses what I thought the actual point was. A fairer way to reframe my accusation is that the OP offered two claims, and you addressed one (money) and ignored the other, then claimed that the other (freedom) was a different goalpost. I think it was the main goalpost, to begin with.

>If you remove money from your rephrasing of the argument you get “I should not be required to use these in a set and setting sanctioned by The State” which is different: I don't mind if you really want to self medicate, nor does the state (as illustrated by the fact that there's no felony or crime for self medication), but in average it's a pretty poor idea: you're way more likely to harm yourself than achieve your goal. If Steve Jobs died because he wasn't smart enough to make the proper medical call for himself, so can you.

Agree with you. I think they are powerful and dangerous, but I am against a nanny state. We should outlaw things that have profound negative effects, such as children with developing brains taking these compounds.

>If you really want to do it “because freedom”, then go for it, but if you do it because there's money at stake like OP, then you're not actually doing it freely, you're doing it under economic constraint and blaming “too much state” is delusional.

Fair point. I don't think that was the case, but I can see why it might seem like that.

>The argument being made was, in short, “it's too fucking expensive, fuck the state” when the reality is that it's expensive because the state doesn't want to intervene, which is what I pointed out.

I think you're half-right. It's expensive because the state has facilitated a black market. It would still likely be expensive due to taxes and regulation, if it were legal. Universal healthcare probably lowers costs, but I hate the argument that "because I'm not paying directly, it's free." We have that now with insurance, and it's a lie.

>Also, “personal sovereignty” is an oxymoron unless you're a king or some autocrat. Sovereignty is a collective process, it's “we the people” not “Me myself and I”.

Personal sovereignty is a thing. It's about autonomy and the right to choose what you do with your body and your property. There are fuzzy areas, such as where those choices might impact others or the environment, but I believe in it as a fundamental right, not a positive one.

>The comment I responded to at the beginning was complaining about the cost of health professional, it wasn't at all about psychedelics in particular, and that's the argument I responded to.

The first one explained, "I remain resistant to this insertion of the state into what should be my right to use my own mind the way I see fit." Yes, they mentioned cost as a factor, but I read that as incidental to the "real" issue.

Apologies for playing the "offensive card." I put a lot of stock into my ability to identify root causes and figure out problems. If someone comes along and presupposes that I'm wrong about my framing of an issue without explaining why, that does feel like an affront. It feels like a theory of mind violation. It felt like you were claiming, "You say that you care about sovereignty, but you actually only care about access. If it was free you wouldn't be complaining." How could you know that? You're not in their head. You skipped a step, and just assumed. I'm hyper-sensitive to this type of thing. I suppose I was projecting this onto your reply to the OP.

This afternoon I was waiting for my man. 80 bucks in my hand. He sells me medicine that I know I need, but I also know is hard to get. Because the physicist thinks that he is God and that he decides who is going to live and who is going to die; he thinks that he can preach about everything.

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