Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

climate.benjames.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–353 of 353 posts

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#351

Post by jorblumesea »

Amezarak wrote: post #317
jorblumesea wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not english at all. Just pointing out that no American should ever be criticizing anyone for how their government and society is setup. The only reasons Americans need to be "rich" is because health insurance is a scam, a car accident can bankrupt you, the tax code is entirely for the wealthy, and social services are poor at best. It's a fake wealth, one where you can have 3M in investments and not be able to ret…

> The only reasons Americans need to be "rich" is because health insurance is a scam, a car accident can bankrupt you, 92% of Americans have health insurance. About a third have insurance through the government. Rather than being a scam, most Americans don't understand just how much it costs because of the employer subsidies. At any rate, given the existence of both auto and health insurance, it is hard to go bankrup…

Health insurance that covers nothing and people celebrate murder healthcare CEOs because their family members are dying. What a fantastic system.

People definitely understand how screwed they are, and being patronizing and trotting out lots of useless stats does nothing for people struggling to get coverage.

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#352

Post by Xelbair »

threeseed wrote: post #144
Xelbair wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People might not like this, but that's true. as long as non-western countries keep polluting - even if we achieve net-zero nothing will change other than us feeling better and patting ourselves in the back.

This is a very misguided view of the situation. a) The transition to clean energy, transportation etc by Western countries funds the development and investment in new technologies. These then filter down to developing countries when the economies of scale kick in e.g. solar panels, electric cars. b) There are also other benefits to cleaner solutions than just trying to achieve net-zero. Reductions in pollution reduce…

I expected average HN user to be aware of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Re: Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?

#353

Post by Amezarak »

jorblumesea wrote: post #351
Amezarak wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reasons Americans need to be "rich" is because health insurance is a scam, a car accident can bankrupt you, 92% of Americans have health insurance. About a third have insurance through the government. Rather than being a scam, most Americans don't understand just how much it costs because of the employer subsidies. At any rate, given the existence of both auto and health insurance, it is hard to go bankrup…

Health insurance that covers nothing and people celebrate murder healthcare CEOs because their family members are dying. What a fantastic system. People definitely understand how screwed they are, and being patronizing and trotting out lots of useless stats does nothing for people struggling to get coverage.

> Health insurance that covers nothing

I have a HDHP. I think most people would describe that as "health insurance that covers nothing." Most people, however, do not have HDHPs. Medicare and Medicaid have incredible coverage. Most PPO plans have great coverage. As a general rule, US health insurance covers too much, including quackery like chiropractery.

There are definitely edge cases and horrible things that happen and should not, but they are not the norm.

One major thing I do see is people demanding unlimited care of whatever kind they want for no cost. That doesn't exist at all in other countries, which are very restrictive in comparison. In a sensible country, we would not allow millions of people to get on extremely expensive (>1k per dose) off-label diabetes medication to lose weight. This is a fantastic example of spending billions of dollars of insurance premiums on something that for almost all its users is totally superfluous when cheaper and healthier options (but not as convenient) are readily available.

In the US, this happens all the time. The fundamental tension in US healthcare is not that "insurance is too expensive" (it is), "insurance denies claims" (it does), providers are too expensive (they are), the system is too complex (it is.) The fundamental tension is that people want everything, and they want it for nothing. At the end of the day, the only solutions are a) people pay what they can afford or b) you have rationing. Either path has problems. The US currently is trying to have everything for nothing, and the show can only go on for so long. Either people don't get care because they can't afford it, or they don't get care because bureaucrats determined it's not worth it. But they cannot get whatever care they want and can find a doctor to provide, for free.

Post reply on HN