alt Hacker News>It's a question of "Should someone in a situation where they need an ambulance have to balance the potentially life-threatening impact of saying no versus the potentially financially ruinous impact of saying yes?"
Yes, you want to make that choice rather than shirk it off. Anything else is a perverse incentive. Making poor medical choices that prioritize your own well-being over the financial solvency of those you care for, those around you, is a shitty thing to do. But, some people like to pretend that if they can just make sure those people are the 300 million Americans rather than a more immediate circle of family, that the problem goes away. It doesn't, it becomes worse.
Most decent people would rather croak than ruin their own family. But those same people, through one false rationalization or another, are more than happy to ruin the entire country. Even if doing so won't result in net benefit. If I'm going to live, it's because the cost of keeping me alive is less than the net benefit of my increased lifespan. That calculation has to be the same no matter how you want to "spread the cost among everyone" or it all falls to shit. And since you're incapable of making rational decisions when it's spread further than your own family, well... things are going to continue to go downhill.
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Well, you don't know how rotten the industry is. Your moral social-darwinism just enriches a couple of suits, nothing more, instead of spreading the costs you could very well start by making sure the costs are not inflated.
x2..x5 multiplier is always applied to any ambulance bill as far as I'm aware. I worked in that industry.
We should go further with this and require troops to pay for their own medevac. /s
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This shit is exactly the problem with capitalism and capitalists.
I've seen as long as I've been alive, "Communism killed hundreds of millions!!!" breathless claims.
When Capitalism kills, oh wait, it never does! Its always "bad individual choices", and never a review of the terrible for-profit system that caused it to begin with.
> Making poor medical choices that prioritize your own well-being over the financial solvency of those you care for, those around you, is a shitty thing to do.
And there it is. The system is highly predatory as intentioned. But the system is just part of capitalism, so its OK. But 'YOUR CHOICES' are the one that's bad, aka blame redirection.
And guess what? More and more people are seeing behind this facade that capitalism is good. Socialism is better. We're tired of being extracted, used up, and thrown away. Its why I'm also part of DSA. I'm done with this individual blame for systemic shit.
Your argument leads me to assume you think everything that causes to someone need an ambulance is the result of their choices.
Victim of a violent crime? You shouldn't have left your house.
Run over by someone else? You shouldn't have left your house.
Caught an infectious disease? You shouldn't have left your house.
Fell down the stairs? Why were you in your house!?! Don't you know how dangerous it is?!?