[antisthenes]

Unless the system gets worse, there will never be enough willpower to change it for the better.

As it stands, the system is already awful for the majority of people, with outcomes like this that become commonplace.

> it’s tantamount to a selfish action that benefits you to the expense of others.

Not unlike having great insurance paid for by your company, while others (just at the cutoff of govt subsidy for the plan) suffer the most and have to pay thousands of dollars for routine care.

It's the ultimate "fuck you got mine", only applied to something that most people can't live without. And while "fuck you got mine" is okay in the context of luxury items, it is not in the case of medicine/housing/food.

So maintaining the status quo is just as, if not more, selfish than protesting the system with a non-payment. But again, keeping the status quo is just letting the wound fester at this point.

[bumby]

>maintaining the status quo is just as, if not more, selfish than protesting the system with a non-payment.

The point was that your approach won’t change the status quo, just makes it a little more expensive for everyone else.

[antisthenes]

I'm all ears for an alternate approach that:

1. Changes the status quo

2. Provides more health care to more people at lower costs (this requires health insurance folks to lose their jobs en masse. Sorry not sorry kind of a thing)

3. Is politically tenable to be enacted within the current generation (e.g. in time for Millenials to benefit from it in retirement)

[bumby]

Me too, I just don’t think what you suggested is it (or a net positive for anyone but yourself).

My current preference is to 1) start with covering veterans completely at the VA and 2) have Medicare for all phased in over decades by gradually lowering the qualifying age. The first is generally politically feasible and will help identify appropriate problems of scale and the second is slow enough to allow the system to adapt but also help the current generation of younger workers by the time they tend to need more healthcare