Re:DOGE's Only Public Ledger Is Riddled with Mistakes
by parineum on Sunday February 23, 2025 @08:30PM
(#43154998)
I think 1970s medical care would be considerably cheaper today. That's what technology does, makes things cheaper and/or allows people to buy more with their dollar.
The standard of medical care you'd receive today for the same price, scaled by inflation, is higher than it was in the 70s.
The logic for food stamps does not really apply to other programs though. The amount of calories people need is constant, so supplying a given population with enough food to survive should be easier as time goes on. However for most things, we're not aiming for a fixed outcome but one that scales with GDP. For example medicine - providing people with 1970s levels of care would certainly be cheaper adjusted for inflation than it was in the 1970s, but providing access to modern medicine in modern hospitals performed by current doctors is substantially more expensive, and providing 2050 medicine will be more expensive still.