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Health Insurance vs. Food Insurance
- api 13y agoI like the author's argument about insurance, but I hate HSAs. Things like HSAs are a regressive tax on people who don't have accountants and/or disposable income. It's also a regressive tax on small businesses and entrepreneurs due to the administrative overhead. Anything that complicates matters is a regressive "complexity tax."
- maxharris 13y agoNo, HSAs aren't like a tax. Quite the opposite, in fact: they are a way to shield the part of your income you might spend on healthcare costs from taxation. On your more basic point of complexity: yes, things ought to be simpler. So that's why we should move to a flat tax, where everyone pays the same low rate, no exceptions. Looking over the next few decades, such a flat tax should just be a stepping stone to a truly voluntary system, where no one pays any taxes at all. The essential functions of government are those functions that are required to protect individual rights, and no others (other roles violate the rights of some, in order to provide unearned benefits to others). A proper government, consisting only of the police, military, and courts - could be funded by proceeds from the sale of optional contract insurance (which would buy each purchaser faster access to mediation in a civil court). Because such a government would be very small, it could even be funded by voluntary contributions from citizens, without any legal requirement. Getting there will require a gradual but massive revolution in people's ethical and political views, but I think that this is the only moral way to structure a society, and the only one that is practical, in the long-term.