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The cost of medical expenses is socialized anyway

• nine_k 5y ago
  Exactly. The entire society had to shoulder the weight of the consequences of bad habits of some. Were the costs not socialized, there'd be a bit less of a point to tax cigarettes so much: you want to get lung cancer and you are ready to pay for it, go ahead and smoke three packs a day! But this is not how it works today.
  • chaosite 5y ago
    Not my point. A phenomenon which affects a large fraction of a population has effects on the entirety of the population, ergo, it is socialized.
    • CryptoPunk 5y ago
      Every major category of goods/services has an effect on a large fraction of society. It doesn't follow that we should socialize the expense of every good/service that fits this criteria. It's absolutely not established that doing so, as a rule, does more good than harm, and we have plenty of empirical evidence that more free-market-based societies are more effective at developing themselves than more socialized ones.