Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by robbiep 4656 days ago
Obviously this has been weighing on you to come back 8 hours later and add that. It is not the objectivity of it that makes it just, it is the availability of it.

Additionally, your thought experiment is utterly useless at illuminating any debate over the merits (or otherwise) of universal healthcare. Beyond the obvious absurdity of a drug of such potency being known about and deemed effective on such a small group of people lies the fact that were such a drug possible then the correlate for the rest of the population would doubtless follow. But I'll play. If it was possible, then the question of whether to make it available to everyone would be a matter for the government of the day. But having been tangentially involved with healthcare consulting the debate would go as such -'we have a drug that costs $x, but will make a person with blue eyes live forever (and, presumably, never need medical treatment again and be a productive tax-paying member of society). If we give everyone with condition a this, our healthcare costs to down by y, despite the one off cost'

So I'm not sure the point you're trying to make. Is it that the government shouldn't be involved in healthcare? Is it that people should be forced to suffer unless they can pay? Is it that you just want to strongly argue on the internet with a perfect stranger with lots of time to waste? You keep on shifting the goalposts on where you want this argument to head, it is clear to me that you have no concept of how a universal healthcare system works because the points you are raising seem really absurd to me; conversely I have no idea what sort of system you are trying to advocate for/against because most of your arguments seem directed against a fox-news image of universal healthcare that Has no basis in reality and that just don't understand.