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OverTheTetons a day ago

Is the obvious retort to this:

I don't think we should play arbiter for who has and hasn't lived a healthy enough life to still believe they should get healthcare?

Analemma_ a day ago | parent [-]

Yeah, I think what Workaccount2 is not realizing is that there's no bottom to "you have higher risk factors, why should I pay for you?", and so once you start down that way you may not like where it ends up. Some hobbies have higher injury rates, why should I pay for your health care if you choose to play those? Some parts of the country have lower life expectancies, why should I pay for your health care if you choose to live there?

Workaccount2 a day ago | parent [-]

The actual realization, which usually comes years after the realization that there is no bottom, is that there is no top either.

The battle along the spectrum of privatizing gains (lower healthcare premiums for a healthy lifestyle - high premiums for unhealthy lifestyle) vs socializing losses (paying $20/mo to get $1200/mo of care - paying $1200/mo for $0/mo of care) is constant and boundless in either direction.

ben_w a day ago | parent [-]

But there is a bound in both directions?

On end, it's "national insurance", functionally equivalent to fully-tax-funded healthcare like the NHS or the German system with several providers competing but regulated to near identical results, but moreso as the UK and Germany also has private care; on the other, it's the absence of insurance.

Workaccount2 20 hours ago | parent [-]

This is a macro problem larger than health insurance, and exists everywhere from employee bonuses, high school group project grades, handicap parking, gas prices, Everest summits, to gas prices.

Those might all seem wildly disconnected, but they all have systems of unfair allocation to compensate for unequal outcomes.

Generally national healthcare programs are entirely dependent on young healthy people paying into the system despite rarely needing it, and then hopefully enough dieing quick deaths or having multiple children to cover their costs. These rebalancing systems are artificial and humans are generally terrible at managing them.