> My proof is by example through thought experiment: I'm a grad student who has a bicycle accident. Without free gov healthcare I now must go into debt to eithe

> My proof is by example through thought experiment: I'm a grad student who has a bicycle accident. Without free gov healthcare I now must go into debt to either the hospital or a lender (medical purchases are just one example of an essentially non-negotiable expense). Perhaps I already had other debts, but somehow now my interest payment + living expenses payments are more than my basic income, otherwise known as the normal life of a grad student in todays society anyway - in my case BI didn't work. This is just one example of how easy it is to slide back into poverty with such a system, it could occur slower and over a few generations but sooner or later poverty is back. We just pushed the goal posts back a little bit. Two arguments against this. The first is that you are comparing a steady income with an insurance. You can always spend your BI on insurance. Wether insurance would be more expensive if you had BI or not, has not been proven in this model, but it could go either way. The second is that BI in that tought experiment, even if you eliminated insurance-type nets, would still yield lower poverty. Its just not the exact same people. That is one of the hardest problems on any social welfare program: if you need to improve everyones position absolutely and relatively, you basically cant do anything. You have to let some lose for others to gain.