[robocat]

Healthcare is a cost not a profit in the economy: the Healthcare sector consumes what is produced by other parts of the economy. Similarly government can't exist without businesses. And a large part of healthcare is dependent on taxation.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Healthcare is a cost not a profit

It’s both. Like transportation and construction. And whether you think it’s a profit or cost center doesn’t change that it contains paying jobs.

[maxerickson]

What do you do about the modest amount I spend on blood pressure medicine making me feel better all the time, which probably makes me more productive at work?

I'm getting more benefit than the cost of that healthcare (I'm asserting that this is true, I feel a lot better with the medicine) and that ends up feeding into the economy.

[robocat]

Good point.

I reckon I'm trying to think about the dependency graph of necessity. I suspect you are too.

A monetary economy has productive sectors and non-productive sectors. Most healthcare is non-productive from the point of view of an economy. Healthcare for workers and future workers is economically productive (from an economy's point-of-view). Maybe my conceptual cleaving is poor (black n white binary splits are usually misleading).

Of course ultimately most of what an economy delivers to us individually is monetarily uneconomic (is art or entertainment necessary?). Me confused.

Now I feel bad that I've wandered off into philosophy (which I usually find interesting but non-useful).