Universal health care

Posted Oct 12, 2012 9:44 UTC (Fri) by cortana (subscriber, #24596)
In reply to: Universal health care by ekj
Parent article: The Patent, Used as a Sword (New York Times)

> If you're really poor, you qualify for governmental support in some form, and you're not vulnerable to financial loss because you have essentially nothing to lose anyway.

You can lose your credit rating! This means you will pay significantly more for any kind of credit for many, many years in the future.

Universal health care

Posted Oct 12, 2012 10:18 UTC (Fri) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

True. But:

A) If you're "really poor", your credit rating is likely to be poor to catastrophic already.

B) It's still a larger loss to loose large fractions of your income, and all of your wealth, and your credit-rating, instead of losing only your credit-rating.

C) If you're "really poor", then there's very few situations where getting credit will help you, it will help short-term, but at a cost of additional pain longer term. The exception is if the short-term cost is for something that gives you additional income longer-term. (say buying a used car, to be able to commute to a new job you got)