[ExI] Why is "cost of living" such a big problem?

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 07/11/2026 18:25, spike wrote:
> ...> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Why is "cost of living" such a big problem?
>
> On 07/11/2026 15:29, spike wrote:
>>> ... the poor in the USA have access to health care.  If they are
> impoverished, they can go to the ER and get treated.  They do.
>
>> ...One important fact that you omitted (which seems strange as it's such an
> important one): They still have to pay! Ben
>
> In theory, sure.  In practice, they don't.  They can't get blood from a
> stone.  Many of the hospital's frequent flyers are homeless.  Where are they
> going to send the bill?  The hospitals know they will eat that expense.
>
> A recent hospital stay I shared a room with a homeless guy who was coming
> off of heroin.  He owned nothing.  They treated him.  Then sent him off to
> be a guest of the Sacramento County sheriff for six months.


Good example of the kind of thing I mean.

In order to get health care for free, you have to be a stone from which blood can't be extracted. Any stone that has any blood at all will be forced to give it all up.

It boils down to the same thing. If you are a poor sick person (not so poor as to be homeless, but poor enough to not be able to afford health care), with a teenage daughter that's bright enough to be able to, and wants to, go to college, then if you need hospital treatment, you are depriving your daughter of her education, as well as impoverishing further yourself and your entire family. What's your best course? Make yourself homeless, I suppose.

When you say "In practice, they don't", you are talking about a minority. Most poor people aren't actually homeless. You are choosing an extreme in order to prove your point, but that point only applies to the extreme case, and not to most. So you have not actually proved your point.
-- 
Ben
"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." - Pablo Casals, via Albert Einstein