Did those hippies take advantage of the medical insurance they didn’t have when they got cancer in those 50 years?

That also means they don't get many of the benefits of modern society, I would think. What do they do when their child becomes a type 1 diabetic? Or goes into shock from an allergic reaction?

Same thing that happens to people in New York City who can't afford fast-acting insulin or EpiPen? Your two examples are telling given the current state of pharma business.

I hate this meme; and that's what is is nowadays, a meme. There are generics for both EpiPen and fast acting insulin. You can walk into a Walmart and buy R for $25/bottle [1]; it didn't even require a prescription, the last I bought it. Sure, it's not as good as Apidra and the like, but it does work; it just requires a more controlled diet. The generic EpiPen is just over $100 for a 2-pack.

I get it, there's stories every now and then of some person that died because they couldn't afford their insulin (for $275/bottle). And every time I stare at the story wondering why that person decided to kill themself for reason.

I get it that newer insulins should be cheaper, that they're way over priced. But it's disingenuous to pretend there aren't options for people that can't afford them.

[1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/novolin-r-relion/129783484

That should probably read:

Your two examples are telling given the current state American healthcare system. I don't think its a problem in Europe.

I have visited back-to-lander hippies, and stayed with them at times. There are certainly aspects of their lifestyle I admire, but I think you're romanticizing it more than is accurate. It's particularly off-base to think that hippie-ism prevents opiate addiction: drug use is rampant in that community, and while you might see a decrease in opiates due to their social stigma in that community, there's still an opiate problem, and there are full-on epidemics of issues with other drugs. The same is true for a few related alternate-lifestyle communities I've interacted with.

The responders pointing out that the back-to-the-landers often don't have adequate medical care aren't entirely off-base. Pharma is fundamentally broken in the US, and this places strict restrictions on the freedom of many people here: if you need medical help on a regular basis, you have no option except to work--the "rat race" as it were. Work itself won't make you happy, but I think for most people, dying of illness that went untreated because they can't afford care isn't happiness either.

But some of us are healthy, and I do have choices. In the past ten years, I've worked a rat race job, then actively chosen poverty and didn't have health insurance, and finally started a company that's successful enough that I have health insurance again. I don't think it's accurate to say that individuals don't have choices. And that goes for everyone. Certainly some have more choices than others, but we all have at least a small degree of agency in our lives. So I don't think it's entirely fair to think that everyone is unhappy because they chose a life outside norms (i.e. without health insurance).

The question remains though, whether choosing to step outside of the norms actually makes us happy. I think the answer to that is somewhat individual: we all have different things that make us happy. But for anyone, there's a certain amount of hubris in assuming that you know better than the norms. Often, norms became norms because they work for a lot of people. I think, for example, we have lots of evidence at this point that percentage-wise money does buy happiness--up to a certain amount, and depending on how you spend it[1]. But those are percentages, not absolutes--there are miserable and happy people at both extremes of wealth and everywhere in between.

I don't know where this leads us. I suspect the reality is more complicated than any of us understand.

[1] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/danielgilbert/files/if-mon...