Re:This is a teenager
by NotMichaelBay on Tuesday April 16, 2024 @09:46PM
(#40059541)
Here's a grim example where being poor leads to being more expensive. An $80 tooth extraction would have avoided $250,000 in hospital care costs.
Maybe for healthcare, in a preventative sense like eating a healthy diet.
But for stuff that requires actual care like your counterexample, yeah it's 100% a government problem
Maybe for crime, diet, civic engagement, it's more of an education problem
Not really sure causality is being poor -> being more expensive
Could go the other way, behaviors that make people more expensive -> being poor
Different hot take: if we took schooling more seriously this would be less of an issue. Which is on the one hand a government problem, on the other hand a cultural problem (compared to, say, Japan)
Just throwing money at a problem without attaching strings or directing how it's used is administrative complacency