In the example above, you get maybe 5 years + taxpayer+consumer - 10 lifetimes, which is a deficit both for taxpayers and consumers.
> This is the whole point of insurance. Very few people will be very expensive and most people will be relatively inexpensive. With preventative care and the advancement of research, fewer people should be expensive over time.
Basically everyone needs some sort of medical care. True, the most expensive cases are rare and they befit insurance, but medical costs are normally not about insurance. Checkups, dentists, basic clinical appointments, etc are not great cases for insurance.
That is, hard diseases can be convered by life insurance, without the need for socialized healthcare for the rest.
> Regardless, the US, as a society, has more than enough money. There's no reason for someone to buy his second $50M yacht while someone else dies of the flu because they couldn't afford the $25 vaccine.
This is a typical rabbit hole argument where it turns out nobody wants to donate their salary until they reach the lowest percentile of income to make it fair. Because who are you to spend your money on a vegan deluxe burger when people are dying of malnutrition!
Blaming rich people for hardships is akin to blaming immigrants for it, on the other side of the political spectrum. They guy with the 50 million dollars did not make the rest poor, in fact its possibly the exact opposite.
There is a lot of ideology in the mere presentation of that argument, i fear this can take a bad turn :).
> You can make these hyper-rationalist arguments, but the vast majority of people are willing to pay a lot of money to live in a society that doesn't just let them die of something curable
I somehow doubt thats really true, otherwise it wouldnt be a debate at all...
1) Living people are taxpayers and consumers. Dead people are not.
2) This is the whole point of insurance. Very few people will be very expensive and most people will be relatively inexpensive. With preventative care and the advancement of research, fewer people should be expensive over time.
Regardless, the US, as a society, has more than enough money. There's no reason for someone to buy his second $50M yacht while someone else dies of the flu because they couldn't afford the $25 vaccine.
3) You can make these hyper-rationalist arguments, but the vast majority of people are willing to pay a lot of money to live in a society that doesn't just let them die of something curable.
I genuinely believe that people who are uninterested in the social contract of the US or other developed nations should be allowed to "opt out" of society: the citizens of the nation will pay for transport to any border of the country, and then citizenship is permanently lost.