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

The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 88 posts

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#11

Post by sp332 »

coryrc wrote: post #8

> They also enter a social contract that promises to provide them affordable coverage when they’re older and no longer healthy, as a form of back payment for cross-subsidizing today’s aged and ill. This is only true if the law requires younger people to pay more than their cohort consumes on an average basis, so as to transfer even more wealth from the working young to the retired, wealthy elderly. Hmmm http://www.fo…

Exactly, if I had any confidence that the insurance companies and congress weren't going to screw me out of tons of money, I might buy into socialized medicine.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#12

Post by iopq »

adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

I don't accept anything less than universal food care, universal shelter care, universal clothing care, and of course universal marriage care.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#14

Post by dnautics »

adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

you don't understand what it means to be a minority. We don't get anywhere near equal quality coverage and are basically forced to subsidize better medical care for white folk. For years, my father was prescribed a drug (simvastatin) that actually did damage to his body because it's nearly universally assumed to be good for him (it is for most white people), and strongly subsidized by the government (he's a military vet).

I only found out because I got 23andMe, and I actually know biology. It was dismaying to find out that very few of the tests on 23andMe are useful for Asians like me (fewer still if you're hispanic and if you're pure African, the affymetrix chip they use is basically useless). As we move into an era of personalized medicine, we'll be subsidizing better healthcare and better outcomes for some ethnic groups over others.

The faulty assumption behind universal healthcare is that a one-size-fits-all prescription is good for everyone, but there are some really ugly disparities that no one talks about; and these disparities serve to reinforce preexisting social inequality. While I'm lucky to be in a minority group that's likely to live a long time - if we have it, a lot of universal healthcare coverage will wind up being plowed into gerontological care costs, which tend to be super-expensive; so in a way, it's a subsidy for rich white people.

Now, I do think the american healthcare system is awful. In particular being able to be put into permanent lifelong debt from healthcare costs is only one small step above barbarism. But I don't think that universal healthcare is the solution we're looking for. Obamacare is even worse, it combines the worst parts of universal healthcare with the worst parts of the crony capitalist system we have, and I won't be surprised when it turns out to be an even bigger albatross on the shoulders of this country.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#15

Post by dbpatterson »

dnautics wrote: post #14
adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

you don't understand what it means to be a minority. We don't get anywhere near equal quality coverage and are basically forced to subsidize better medical care for white folk. For years, my father was prescribed a drug (simvastatin) that actually did damage to his body because it's nearly universally assumed to be good for him (it is for most white people), and strongly subsidized by the government (he's a military…

Universal health care has _nothing_ to do with treating all people alike. It just means treating them all.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#16

Post by sliverstorm »

dnautics wrote: post #14
adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

you don't understand what it means to be a minority. We don't get anywhere near equal quality coverage and are basically forced to subsidize better medical care for white folk. For years, my father was prescribed a drug (simvastatin) that actually did damage to his body because it's nearly universally assumed to be good for him (it is for most white people), and strongly subsidized by the government (he's a military…

It sounds to me like your father's issue was not that he was not white, but that he had a rare genetic condition...

There was even a study that found on the whole, simvastatin is equally helpful across races: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16709304

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#18

Post by purplelobster »

iopq wrote: post #12
adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

I don't accept anything less than universal food care, universal shelter care, universal clothing care, and of course universal marriage care.

Ironically, you're close enough to the truth. The only thing that stands in the way of dignified living for everybody is people like you. There is enough resources in this world (especially the US). Why should kids everywhere live in poverty, starve and not be given the same opportunity under the same conditions as more fortunate kids (well fed, good schools) because their parents couldn't find or hold down a job? Instead, kids grow up hungry and can't focus on school, and even if they want to, they live in a poor neighborhood with bad schools, perpetuating the situation for yet another generation.

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#19

Post by fennecfoxen »

Frozenlock wrote: post #2

Seems to me the author is conflating the principle of insurance with Obamacare. Or in other words, it's not because the general concept of insurance can be wise that every implementations are interesting.

Yes...

"One of the less obvious consequences of serious accidents is that victims often become uninsurable on the individual market as a result.... Obamacare really will change that."

Making this sort of insurance available amounts to a wealth transfer to people who have been victims of injuries. That's fine, if you're into wealth transfers and all that, but...

wouldn't it be better if we just admitted it was a big fat subsidy to the sick and injured, and paid for it out of the general fund, instead of paying for it by making insurance more expensive, especially the young healthy twenty-somethings who struggle to afford it? so that these twenty-somethings wouldn't be tempted to skip it, among other things, and would be less vulnerable to these $200,000+ risks (and further undermine the system)?

I mean, all else being equal, it is probably a good idea to be insured if you can, Obamacare notwithstanding, but the fact that it incentives people this way is a fundamental design flaw, not a feature or a fix.

Oh, wait, I know why we're paying for it this way. It's so we can pretend that it doesn't cost anybody any money. :P

Re: The $200K lesson I learned from getting shot

#20

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

adambard wrote: post #3

Can I be the first non-US citizen in this thread express my incredulity that anything less than universal health care is tolerated? "Barbaric" is the term that seems to strike me whenever I hear of it, hyperbolic though it may be.

the only difference is that in socialized medicine you wait for life saving surgery for months even when you have money to pay for it. So everybody suffers.
Post reply on HN