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Comment by readthenotes1 | Hacker News Reader

A friend wants observed to me while I was ranting about something:

They would solve the problem if it weren't so valuable.

Off-topic but I'm curious, so please bear with me: did you dictate this message or type it? As an ESL speaker, I'm always super surprised as to what native speakers might mis-type phonetically (in ways that would never occur to non-natives), like "wants" for "once".

As a native English speaker, I am actually shocked that I didn’t notice the wants/once discrepancy until you mentioned it. My brain must have either autocorrected or it was in ‘phonetic mode?’ when I read it.

Me too. I'm usually pretty good at proof reading but my mind skipped that one entirely!

Dictated it. I really should proofread more often but it fails just enough to make that not worth my while.

I am sorry - - I will try to proofread more often. English is hard enough without having to go through homonym-like substitutions to figure out what we mean!

As a non native speaker I make these errors in my own as speech to text machine which is my brain and body. I'd sometimes write the wrong word that's phonetically ~~different~~ the same while typing, if I'm tired or in a hurry.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean here.

You write the wrong word, which is phonetically different (so a completely different word), but you write it "the same" (so you write the right word)?

This just happened, while discussing my rank in a video game:

"i hit be for the first time last week, but im a mid C at best"

"be" should be "B" in this case.

(the "different" in my previous post was "strike through" in markdown with the ~~'s. That didnt come across)

Oh OK. I'd only seen native speakers make those kinds of substitutions before. TIL

not OP but as a native, that's a speech-to-text error 100%

Why have health care when you can make more treating symptoms without a cure or prevention?

Why have enough housing when rents go up during scarcity?

Why make life better for your working class citizens when you can import fresh ones to exploit?

Seems like there is a systemic problem that is causing the same issues in many countries.

On the healthcare front, it would actually more profitable for insurance companies to fund preventative health care and healthier lifestyles. Instead they focus on denying coverage as a way to generate profits.

Don't have to pay for the costs of denying preventative care if we just deny coverage for the expensive stuff too! taps forehead

They can only deny a certain percent of care that they’re supposed to pay out before they come under scrutiny and lawsuits are filed. Preventative care can dictate better outcomes for pretty much everyone covered.

Don't insurance make money on margin? That is what they are allowed to charge above their payout rate. Thus as long as payout rate goes up at right speed compared to their payin they will earn more the more they spend. It is not like premiums are set to go down ever.

For insurance, but health care is bigger than insurance.

Pharmaceutical, hospitals, equipment manufacturers.

Not everyone profits maximally from healthy people.

Correct. But incentives within the industry should balance everything out if each of these players tries to profit maximally the right way.

“Should”

Lobbying and regulatory capture have led to a less than free market, that people expect to function as a free market, but the government intervention has been too great.

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