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Data driven decisions please, all others are opinions and emotion. If there is a greater (measurable) net benefit to society with Universal Basic Income vs. o

Data driven decisions please, all others are opinions and emotion. If there is a greater (measurable) net benefit to society with Universal Basic Income vs. our socialist agenda of getting into peoples lives more directly (food stamps, healthcare, low income and child subsidies)... then who gives a damn? If you are unaware, or lacking a deep appreciation, of what money is (fractional reserve banking) then you have little, if anything at all, to contribute to this "debate"

Oletros 10y ago
What is the difference between providing UBI and Healthcare? If there is a net benefit for the society if Healthcare is provided, will you agree with the government providing it?
- bonniemuffin 10y ago
  One difference is that UBI allows individuals to spend the money on whatever they need most, rather than requiring central planning to decide what they need. There's some evidence to indicate this may make it more efficient in delivering life-improving value to the recipient.
- wyager 10y ago
  Not the GP, but yes I would. The problem is that this is very hard to demonstrate for several reasons. First, most analyses assume that healthcare is fungible, so anyone who "has healthcare" is considered to be in the same boat. This is untrue. Most government-provided healthcare systems rank quite poorly in terms of wait times, fatality rates, etc. compared to private healthcare. Second, it's hard to distinguish the benefit of government medical systems from the benefit of freeing the private medical system from legal red tape. For example, many people cite lower drug costs as a benefit of government medicine. This is not an intrinsic feature of "single-payer" healthcare, but rather a result of the fact that drug agencies in the US have the full weight of the patent system behind them in order to create artificial scarcity and drive up prices. In other countries, since the government both buys drugs and controls IP, the government always has the threat of removing IP rights to a drug if a company fails to provide a "reasonable" price, which simulates actual competition. One could get the same effect by changing the nature of medical IP rather than taking the drastic measure of publicizing drug purchases. That is a utility analysis I'd really like to see. Third, one must include the utility of having a choice. There are both psychological and practical components to this, but it's better when you're not forced to pay for a service you don't want. I know how good private healthcare can be; just go to a tourist hospital in Mexico or India. Truly an awesome experience. A super easy way to get all the alleged benefits of socialized healthcare (especially affordability) is just to deregulate the shit out of hospitals. A lot of Americans are scared about that because they think deregulation is synonymous with the triangle shirtwaist factory, but it's truly a mind-bending experience how good the healthcare is in medically deregulated countries.
  - Oletros 10y ago
    > Most government-provided healthcare systems rank quite poorly in terms of wait times, fatality rates, etc. compared to private healthcare. I suppose that you can provide sources for your claim. > but it's truly a mind-bending experience how good the healthcare is in medically deregulated countries If you can afford it, can the Mexican and Indian citizens afford that health care in "tourist hospitals"?
    - wyager 10y ago
      Not really interested in finding a study that happens to support that particular claim, especially since "quality" in this case is 100% subjective, so someone else could very reasonably disagree with me. All I can talk about is my experience; take it as nothing more than an opinion. The NHS sucks, Canadian healthcare sucks, US healthcare is good but expensive and overcomplicated, Mexican healthcare is great. I have heard from friends how Indian healthcare is similarly excellent, and French and German healthcare suck (unless, in the German case, you are a US citizen with US insurance, then they'll actually treat you well because they can get paid for it). > If you can afford it, can the Mexican and Indian citizens afford that health care in "tourist hospitals"? That's completely irrelevant. We're comparing the quality of care at the same price point. Obviously poorer people in poor countries won't be able to pay for the luxury healthcare that your average first-worlder can. They also wouldn't be able to afford the kind of socialized healthcare we could afford. Just to give you a price point, 2 hours with a doctor (not a nurse), 2 x-rays, and an ultrasound was under $250 in Mexico. No paperwork, no waiting, no bullshit. Happy medical staff, happy patients. The exact opposite of any red-tape-encumbered first-world hospital.
      - Oletros 10y ago
        If you say that French system suck and Mexican system is great then we can't discuss anything
        wyager 10y ago
        Which of the two have you used personally?
- cderwin 10y ago
  Interestingly Charles Murray's universal basic income proposal mandates that $3,000 of the $13,000 annual basic income be payed on health care. http://www.fljs.org/files/publications/Murray.pdf http://www.fljs.org/files/publications/Murray.pdf
wyager 10y ago
While I agree with the sentiment (data is the only reasonable way to make large-scale decisions), it is important to remember that any utility analysis needs to include such factors as the negative utility associated with workers knowing that xy% of their paycheck is going to support people who don't have any work obligations. For example, if UBI resulted in marginally improved economic conditions by some utilitarian heuristic over a somewhat more laissez-faire system, I would probably prefer the more laissez-faire system due to the social/moral value I ascribe to greater freedom and autonomy. I'm sure you're aware of this notion, but I figured it made a good addendum to what you said.
- sauronlord 10y ago
  A certain % of my paycheck is already going to those people via soup kitchens, and the like. It would be nice to know, assuming UBI is more effective, that the redistribution is not done in a condescending way. Such as empowering people to make their own decisions and be more autonomous vs. high overhead bureaucracies interfering with peoples' lives at the micro level. I think your expression of "greater freedom and autonomy" is in line with UBI (once again, assuming there is clear evidence that there is a net benefit and no more money leaves my wallet in either system)
  - wyager 10y ago
    > I think your expression of "greater freedom and autonomy" is in line with UBI While this is a reasonable argument, and why I would prefer UBI to existing welfare schemes, my definition of "freedom" doesn't include anything that you force someone else to pay for, and my definition of "autonomy" doesn't include living off the sweat of other people. They're almost antonymous, in fact.
majewsky 10y ago
It's really hilarious which kinds of things will be considered "socialist" by Americans.
- wyager 10y ago
  Everything he mentioned seems very clearly socialist to me. What would you say isn't?
  - Oletros 10y ago
    None of those things are just socialist they pertain to social democracy
    - wyager 10y ago
      Can you explain how you define that distinction?
      - Oletros 10y ago
        Socialism is a political system where all the means of production pertains to the state, a social democracy is a capitalist system where the means of productions are private
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  It's a twisted ideology, but one can easily argue here that anything the government does is socialist, because it supplants a function that could be performed by the private market, regardless of the market's willingness or effectiveness at solving the problem for a greater good of society. One good case is movie ratings: by rating films for age-appropriate audiences, the MPAA solves an issue that the government could do itself, but this way prevents unnecessary overreach. If a theater permits minors to see R rated films, it is barred from playing any films associated with the MPAA, which is pretty much all of them. The obviously bad version of this ideology is health care and health insurance, where free market incentives result in milking the state (taxpayers) while simultaneously providing a poorer quality of service at an inflated cost because health cannot be bargained with. I don't agree with the results of the American mindset but in a way it still makes sense, just by a very narrow and cold interpretation.

Oletros 10y ago

What is the difference between providing UBI and Healthcare? If there is a net benefit for the society if Healthcare is provided, will you agree with the government providing it?

bonniemuffin 10y ago
One difference is that UBI allows individuals to spend the money on whatever they need most, rather than requiring central planning to decide what they need. There's some evidence to indicate this may make it more efficient in delivering life-improving value to the recipient.
wyager 10y ago
Not the GP, but yes I would. The problem is that this is very hard to demonstrate for several reasons. First, most analyses assume that healthcare is fungible, so anyone who "has healthcare" is considered to be in the same boat. This is untrue. Most government-provided healthcare systems rank quite poorly in terms of wait times, fatality rates, etc. compared to private healthcare. Second, it's hard to distinguish the benefit of government medical systems from the benefit of freeing the private medical system from legal red tape. For example, many people cite lower drug costs as a benefit of government medicine. This is not an intrinsic feature of "single-payer" healthcare, but rather a result of the fact that drug agencies in the US have the full weight of the patent system behind them in order to create artificial scarcity and drive up prices. In other countries, since the government both buys drugs and controls IP, the government always has the threat of removing IP rights to a drug if a company fails to provide a "reasonable" price, which simulates actual competition. One could get the same effect by changing the nature of medical IP rather than taking the drastic measure of publicizing drug purchases. That is a utility analysis I'd really like to see. Third, one must include the utility of having a choice. There are both psychological and practical components to this, but it's better when you're not forced to pay for a service you don't want. I know how good private healthcare can be; just go to a tourist hospital in Mexico or India. Truly an awesome experience. A super easy way to get all the alleged benefits of socialized healthcare (especially affordability) is just to deregulate the shit out of hospitals. A lot of Americans are scared about that because they think deregulation is synonymous with the triangle shirtwaist factory, but it's truly a mind-bending experience how good the healthcare is in medically deregulated countries.
- Oletros 10y ago
  > Most government-provided healthcare systems rank quite poorly in terms of wait times, fatality rates, etc. compared to private healthcare. I suppose that you can provide sources for your claim. > but it's truly a mind-bending experience how good the healthcare is in medically deregulated countries If you can afford it, can the Mexican and Indian citizens afford that health care in "tourist hospitals"?
  - wyager 10y ago
    Not really interested in finding a study that happens to support that particular claim, especially since "quality" in this case is 100% subjective, so someone else could very reasonably disagree with me. All I can talk about is my experience; take it as nothing more than an opinion. The NHS sucks, Canadian healthcare sucks, US healthcare is good but expensive and overcomplicated, Mexican healthcare is great. I have heard from friends how Indian healthcare is similarly excellent, and French and German healthcare suck (unless, in the German case, you are a US citizen with US insurance, then they'll actually treat you well because they can get paid for it). > If you can afford it, can the Mexican and Indian citizens afford that health care in "tourist hospitals"? That's completely irrelevant. We're comparing the quality of care at the same price point. Obviously poorer people in poor countries won't be able to pay for the luxury healthcare that your average first-worlder can. They also wouldn't be able to afford the kind of socialized healthcare we could afford. Just to give you a price point, 2 hours with a doctor (not a nurse), 2 x-rays, and an ultrasound was under $250 in Mexico. No paperwork, no waiting, no bullshit. Happy medical staff, happy patients. The exact opposite of any red-tape-encumbered first-world hospital.
    - Oletros 10y ago
      If you say that French system suck and Mexican system is great then we can't discuss anything
      - wyager 10y ago
        Which of the two have you used personally?
cderwin 10y ago
Interestingly Charles Murray's universal basic income proposal mandates that $3,000 of the $13,000 annual basic income be payed on health care. http://www.fljs.org/files/publications/Murray.pdf http://www.fljs.org/files/publications/Murray.pdf

wyager 10y ago

While I agree with the sentiment (data is the only reasonable way to make large-scale decisions), it is important to remember that any utility analysis needs to include such factors as the negative utility associated with workers knowing that xy% of their paycheck is going to support people who don't have any work obligations. For example, if UBI resulted in marginally improved economic conditions by some utilitarian heuristic over a somewhat more laissez-faire system, I would probably prefer the more laissez-faire system due to the social/moral value I ascribe to greater freedom and autonomy. I'm sure you're aware of this notion, but I figured it made a good addendum to what you said.

sauronlord 10y ago
A certain % of my paycheck is already going to those people via soup kitchens, and the like. It would be nice to know, assuming UBI is more effective, that the redistribution is not done in a condescending way. Such as empowering people to make their own decisions and be more autonomous vs. high overhead bureaucracies interfering with peoples' lives at the micro level. I think your expression of "greater freedom and autonomy" is in line with UBI (once again, assuming there is clear evidence that there is a net benefit and no more money leaves my wallet in either system)
- wyager 10y ago
  > I think your expression of "greater freedom and autonomy" is in line with UBI While this is a reasonable argument, and why I would prefer UBI to existing welfare schemes, my definition of "freedom" doesn't include anything that you force someone else to pay for, and my definition of "autonomy" doesn't include living off the sweat of other people. They're almost antonymous, in fact.

majewsky 10y ago

It's really hilarious which kinds of things will be considered "socialist" by Americans.

wyager 10y ago
Everything he mentioned seems very clearly socialist to me. What would you say isn't?
- Oletros 10y ago
  None of those things are just socialist they pertain to social democracy
  - wyager 10y ago
    Can you explain how you define that distinction?
    - Oletros 10y ago
      Socialism is a political system where all the means of production pertains to the state, a social democracy is a capitalist system where the means of productions are private
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
It's a twisted ideology, but one can easily argue here that anything the government does is socialist, because it supplants a function that could be performed by the private market, regardless of the market's willingness or effectiveness at solving the problem for a greater good of society. One good case is movie ratings: by rating films for age-appropriate audiences, the MPAA solves an issue that the government could do itself, but this way prevents unnecessary overreach. If a theater permits minors to see R rated films, it is barred from playing any films associated with the MPAA, which is pretty much all of them. The obviously bad version of this ideology is health care and health insurance, where free market incentives result in milking the state (taxpayers) while simultaneously providing a poorer quality of service at an inflated cost because health cannot be bargained with. I don't agree with the results of the American mindset but in a way it still makes sense, just by a very narrow and cold interpretation.