121–130 of 387 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because without minimal standards for sterilizing tools, hair dressers can spread lice. Basic licencing requirements give the municipality a chance to ensure that everyone washing hair has been told about basic hygienic standards for washing hair.
Leave it to the HN community to view a lice outbreak as an acceptable price to pay for the freedom of the market.
I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…
> America has a real empathy problem Hypothesis: that’s a function of some kind of Dunbar’s Law thing about the population size of a country. China and India as confirming examples, Japan as possibly an exception
Furthermore, watch out for confirmation bias: why is Japan a possible exception rather than a counterexample?
I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…
"get out of you don't like it" Nobody saying this has actually researched it. Too many people in the states are under the impression you can just up and move to a European country, no problem. One friendly-but-clueless acquaintance got flown back from Heathrow for asking the immigration officer about where to find jobs when she landed. If you don't/can't: * work in tech or medicine * go to university in Europe in a h…
Acknowledging this would be acknowledging how attractive alternatives are in comparison.
Not all rich should be praised for their hard work and gumption in getting to the top either...but some still deserve it. Painting these groups as solid black and white maybe isn't the best tool for the job.
I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…
"get out of you don't like it" Nobody saying this has actually researched it. Too many people in the states are under the impression you can just up and move to a European country, no problem. One friendly-but-clueless acquaintance got flown back from Heathrow for asking the immigration officer about where to find jobs when she landed. If you don't/can't: * work in tech or medicine * go to university in Europe in a h…
If you want to move here from outside of the EU it's a whole other matter though. It boils down to two things though: Can you look after yourself (for example have a job ready; just as long as you won't come here expecting a handout from the government), and can you integrate (you have to do a language and culture certification in your country of origin).
What I'm scared about, is how people often look down on welfare recipients, and how politicians could decide to force me to work somehow. As long as slavery is forbidden, nobody can force me to work.
What is weird is that in order to receive welfare, you have to be registered as unemployed, and declare every month that you're looking for work. Of course it is difficult to check if all those people are looking for work and you cannot really cut their welfare if unemployment numbers are what they are.
If you're a politician, you understand that welfare policies are buying the "social peace", but it's a paradox because most people will feel guilty for being unemployed, and people who work will accuse the ones who are not working.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, the ambition on the left over here (in the US) is to eliminate means testing for programs as much as possible. Healthcare problems? Free healthcare for everyone, no forms required. No home? Everyone gets a free / low cost house. We aim to do much more than that (give control of the economy to the people), but a robust welfare state is a good start.
Those are compelling policy handwaves, but they really aren't going to the heart of the issue; which is someone in the broader conversation is basically misrepresenting reality to an astounding degree. The OECD reports that the US already spends more on healthcare per capita than any other nation by a substantial margin [0]. If it were believed that the ambitious left were going to implement free healthcare by bringi…
Leaving aside the question of old age and focusing on healthcare for people of working age, it is almost always cheaper to intervene earlier, and it helps people get back to work sooner. The case is even stronger in children where healthcare gets to determine if they get to live a decent life or not.
Not to mention the benefits of time saved fighting back and forth over bills.
A little bit of cost control pushing people onto the cheaper versions of insulin and things like that, in the manner of the UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence would help. This is also what every private insurer does, but people go bananas when contemplating the idea that the government might do it.
Oh, and pharma marketing needs reining in. Some of the people who were marketing opiates should be jailed for the damage they've done.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, the ambition on the left over here (in the US) is to eliminate means testing for programs as much as possible. Healthcare problems? Free healthcare for everyone, no forms required. No home? Everyone gets a free / low cost house. We aim to do much more than that (give control of the economy to the people), but a robust welfare state is a good start.
Oh my god, I just read news about some "centrist" Democrats arguing against universal single-payer healthcare on the grounds that some segment of the working population already gets a nice healthcare package as a benefit, and somehow it would be unfair to those people if everyone was eligible to reasonable medical care. I mean, with Democrats like that, why do you even need Republicans?
Never mind that the average wait time to see a doctor in Canada is almost 20 weeks, and that tens of thousands of Canadians cross the border to the US every year to avoid that wait...
There are tradeoffs with everything. Personally I think people should proactively try to live healthier lives - the medical establishment is about making money, not making you healthier.
The other major side benefit of that is our society might be able to afford the overall cost of healthcare - it's not looking too good at the moment!
I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…
I'm from Norway. The backside of the medal when it comes to welfare services of that kind is the rather humiliating process you have to go through to actually get them. I've heard many stories about this. Yes, you'll get help if you do as they say, but it can feel very invasive at times. Some clueless bureaucrat will need to know about your finances and all your medical issues, and if it's not a clear-cut case, these…
In France for example a lot of people go to the doctor for the most ridiculous things because 1: it's free (at least at the individual level) and 2: it's an easy way to get a sick leave (sick leaves have been exploding in the last few years). Same with emergency rooms, people don't know what an emergency is, they just use them as walk in clinic.
Every time someone goes to the doc for a small headache or a common cold, just for the doc to tell them "well, just wait it'll go away, here have some aspirin", it cost something like $30-100 to the whole system.
I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…
"get out of you don't like it" Nobody saying this has actually researched it. Too many people in the states are under the impression you can just up and move to a European country, no problem. One friendly-but-clueless acquaintance got flown back from Heathrow for asking the immigration officer about where to find jobs when she landed. If you don't/can't: * work in tech or medicine * go to university in Europe in a h…
Then again, if you have access to $500k, the safety net is probably less interesting.