[guylhem]

Wow that's luck - just when I was browsing around I found the perfect analysis on overcoming bias : senior voters and their healtcare - paid for by the majority, but since seniors vote more, they favour the candidate serving their interest - at the expanse of the majority

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/09/us-politics-of-medicin...

Very interesting indeed- it seems to be the simplest pitfall of democracy : when the repartition of voters becomes detached from the repartition of the consequences and advantages.

[edoloughlin]

> senior voters and their healtcare - paid for by the majority, but since seniors vote more, they favour the candidate serving their interest - at the expanse of the majority

It's difficult to see how this is at the expense of the majority since it's not exclusive: the majority will eventually become members of the beneficial group. I.e., why not have a policy that benefits the elderly since most of us will one day be elderly?

[refurb]

You have to remember that the incentive is to create a benefit for today's group, whether or not it is sustainable in the long run.

If I were a senior, I could vote in benefits that today would benefit me, but create enough budget pressure that later groups would receive benefits that are worse than what I receive now.

[mhb]

One way is that reallocating money is wasteful. It requires administration and encourages wasting more money on lobbying for your entitlement.

Even though it may theoretically make sense if the reallocation is frictionless, that's not how it turns out.

[prakashk]

Also, overall health situation tends to deteriorate as one ages, so seniors as a group would need more healthcare dollars per capita compared to the younger population groups. No wonder healthcare becomes one of the most important issues for seniors.

[guylhem]

No- healthcare is an investment with a negative interest rate, ie you can only try to maintain your capital if you keep investing more and more - with a diminishing return since it ends in death anyway (with the current technology)

In this specific case, a better investment strategy is to put the money where you will get the most of it, i.e. on the health of people still young, and reduce the investment as the people age.

[kghose]

I don't know about the economic soundness of the argument, but it is so cold hearted that I would immediately emigrate from any country where this was the driving force behind government policy.

[guylhem]

It's not about being cold hearted - it's a fact of life. We die. And before we die we cost a lot of money - for unfixable problems.

We also have health problems when we are young. All things being equal, we are also more likely to take advantage of healthcare "done" at a young age than at an older age - if only because of the longer lifespan.

I can't see any logic behind medicare - money should be spend on young adult so that they can become productive again, not on old retired people.

If we had technology to make death avoidable or just far away enough than say being 80 became being young, it would be wise to spend healthcare money on 80 years old.

At the present time it is not.

If you feel like emigrating from a country where this became government policy, I would feel like immigrating to that country, if only because of the better economic prospects removing part of the healthcare "tax" would bring - and hopefully the other good policies that might come from such a country.

And BTW I'm not at all against spending money for healthcare of 80 years old people (and I hope I'll be 80 years old someday!) as long as it is their money. Not tax money, not my money ? Then it's not my problem either.

You know the saying - it is far too easy to spend other people money.

[wisty]

If they called it "preventative medicine" then you might not be so upset.

[Evbn]

And I am so coldhearted that I would emigrate from any country with this policy, when I get old.

[bradleyjg]

There is another possibility besides growing old.

[Spooky23]

You're really off base in that assessment. The original case for Medicare was driven by the realities of life in the 50's and early sixties when medicine started advancing.

Middle class people found themselves in situations where they were forced to make choices that were either morally questionable or difficult to bear. What do you do when your parents lose their faculties and require care?

Before Medicare and Medicaid, you had three basic choices: pay for nursing care at great expense and impact you ability to provide for your kids, care for them yourself to the degree that you can (ie, cramming the kids into one bedroom and doing what you can, probably destroying your marriage in the process), or essentially discard them and allow them to die, which is morally reprehensible and hard in the soul.

Forget about the bunkum of modern politics. Do you think it is ethically or morally sound to cut off access to healthcare to the elderly? Should my father die of congestive heart failure because my family doesn't have $30k for a cardiac stent?

In my opinion, the answer is no. Society as a whole should provide some rational level of quality health care to all.

[MartinCron]

Having a society where the elderly are not just left to wither and die benefits everyone, even those who are not (yet) elderly.

[tbirdz]

[citation needed]

[chris_wot]

Why is that?

[chris_wot]

In Australia, this isn't such a problem. Voting is mandatory. I'll now await to hear the almost universal condemnation or be downvoted by American participants...

[prodigal_erik]

Anyone genuinely indifferent about voting is not going to be well-informed and do it wisely; letting them stay home is a pretty good signal/noise filter that's hard to object to. The only problem that mandatory voting solves is prospective voters whose abusive employers or families wouldn't permit them to vote otherwise.

[nitrogen]

Mandatory voting would solve some problems caused by strongly motivated minorities voting for their own interests. For example, even apathetic young people forced to vote would be unlikely to vote for an elderly care plan that would inevitably bankrupt their country.

[eli_gottlieb]

Of course, in Australia you can cast a null ballot. Given that, I quite like the Australian system.

[chris_wot]

Actually, that's not legal. However, they can't prove you've done that, given it's an anonymous ballot!