senior_james's comments

"Because the FDA restricts the importing of drugs from overseas if a version is available domestically, patients are stuck with the new, expensive version"

They restrict the importing of drugs overseas because it takes around 3 billion and a decade to get a drug approved by the FDA. Drug companies also only have 7 years to make up the cost of the 3 billion (before the patent expires).

If they allowed the importing of drugs, overseas companies would just create generics based on all of the R&D the US company put into it and they would never be able to recoup their costs.

If you want cheaper drugs, make it cheaper to get FDA approval. This will also add more competing companies and market forces will push the prices down.

I think it's great that they are trying to disrupt the textbook industry. However, the industry is so large and the majority of US universities are so entrenched, it's going to be an uphill battle.

There have been many startups that attempted this and all have failed (or the VCs just wanted a payout and were bought for millions when the big publishing companies felt threatened).

It's like trying to disrupt Ticketmaster. You might be able to get a few venues over to your side, but if the artists aren't switching over, you won't get very much traction.

Universities also have no incentive to save money on software. They know that not only is there more of a demand to go to college than the supply of colleges, but that they are guaranteed tuition through the federal loans program.

If we had no federal student loan program, they would be forced to compete on the free market and all of these ridiculous prices for textbooks and software would free fall.

"Can you reframe your first sentence based on the fact that a sign with "Death to All Jews" was used? "

Yes. it's like saying someone is racist for having a picture of a racist sign in an article about racism in America. Context is everything and removing it to intentionally discredit someone and destroy their livelihood reminds me of actual Hitler tactics. The self-proclaimed 'anti-fascists' are the actual fascists.

"The companies have no obligation (Aside from contractual) to work with him. He made content that they deemed to be bad enough to end their relationship, that's on him, no matter the intention."

This is a dangerous path as well. Should a conservative business owner be able to fire anyone in their company that supports abortion?

Should A trump supporter be able to fire anyone in their company that supported Hillary?

Sure, they aren't violating any laws. But we are creating an extremely divisive culture where opposing viewpoints can't be expressed without fear of reprisal and the result is violence.

A few years back, I remember when a few companies opposed supporting birth control and abortions and didn't want to pay for it through employee healthcare plans.

There were so many people (including here on HN) claiming that companies have no rights and they shouldn't even be given the choice.

Now that it supports your political opinion, companies have the right to not do business with anyone they wish.

So hypocritical.

The stunt wasn't actually anti-sematic. It was just trying to show how ridiculous the world has come to where you can pay a guy on Fiverr $5 to do pretty much anything (while it was in poor taste).

To me, it just shows me how ridiculous our politically correct world has come to.

If I'm not allowed to talk about tragedies without getting fired from my job or having my life ruined, then I guess I will say that they never happened. Anything I'm not allowed to talk about eventually gets silenced. If someone asks, we should just say it never happened.

"There is no single US healthcare system that someone can experience first-hand. "

Sure there is. There aren't that many private insurance companies in the US and they all work similarly.

"I take you haven't experienced the system as someone, say, making less than $25k/yr, in every single state, at various times of year (say 2 months before your deductible rolls over) with various kinds of conditions (acute, chronic, extremely rare, etc?), at various points in their careers (if they can even claim to use that word)? And you've experienced this in a range of personal contexts?"

I feel like this is the 'no true scotsman' logical fallacy creeping into the conversation. You could say the same thing about every single healthcare system (or any large system) in the world: it's not the same for everyone.

..and by the way, my wife's sister makes $35K/year. Money has little to do with it.

"There are millions of Americans who can't afford $250/mo on top of food, rent, and transportation costs, working more than full-time hours spread across several jobs, all of which pay minimum wage in poor conditions that are bad for their bodies and with unpredictable scheduling."

You say that, but many people I know won't pay for healthcare, but pay more in booze, weed, and expensive electronics and services.

When I was single, I got bare-bones care for $75/month. This is as cheap as a cellphone plan. My premiums were high, but I wouldn't go bankrupt if I had major surgery. Many people can easily afford healthcare in this country. They choose to spend their money elsewhere.

I've traveled the world and the US has the richest poor people I've ever seen. Try living on less than $2/day with starving children.

Hospitals can't refuse anyone by law. We also have lots of systems, paid for by the taxpayers, to help people on low incomes get the care they need.

"In light of the reality of many, many people's experiences in the healthcare system that are contrary to your own, which are NOT hard to find, your comments comes across quite poorly."

Your comments come off as rather naive. No system is perfect and I can point to many instances of people getting terrible care in every other healthcare system as well.

You want to paint a hyperbolic picture that the US healthcare system will make you go bankrupt and you need to be rich to get care.

My point is that this just isn't true. It needs work, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be.

I see you have actual experience with the system. Most people commenting here seem to be parroting talking points from politicians.

When I actually post my real experiences, I get down voted to -2.

....and we wonder why there are so many broken systems in the US.

"Something like cancer, with ct scans, chemo, radiation, surgery with a 1 week hospital stay, etc...can bankrupt you."

Again, I will have to disagree. Do you have any actual experience with this or are you going to just give me more talking points....

My wife's sister went through stage 2 breast cancer over the past 2 years and she had her own insurance plan as well. After 4 major surgeries and 1 year of chemo, her total expenses are $10K.

You can negotiate with hospitals and they almost always have payment plans with 0 interest for a few years. She negotiate it down to $5K, which is pretty reasonable, considering the amount of time she spent in the hospital.

My Aunt lives in Canada and she had thyroid cancer a couple of years ago. Because it wasn't considered 'life threatening', she had to go before a health board to determine when she should actually receive surgery.

They determined that she could have surgery in 2 years. This was unacceptable, so she went over the border to the US and got it done in a month.

I would much rather have the option of actually getting the surgery done in a timely fashion than having to go before a board (IE: the 'death panels' that everyone talks about) to determine my fate.

The US healthcare system does need work, but many people use hyperbole and have never experienced it first-hand.

"However, all it takes is one savvy baker to recognize he or she could raise the prices just a little lower than everyone else, enough for people to start preferring their shop instead of the competition."

This doesn't take the free market into account. The reason the baker is forced to raise their prices is because when everyone is getting the same amount of money, they will be unwilling to work for a wage that is lower than it.

So, in addition to the employees at the bakery now requiring a higher wage, all of the people along the supply chain of the baked goods (eggs, milk, flour, etc) will also see a boost in pay (and the costs will be pushed down to the chain until it reaches the consumer).

If the baker doesn't increase prices, they will quickly go out of business.

"Which is the exact same price point as before[0], and doesn’t depend on the purchasing power of the consumers (that is, it’s not tied to how much money people have)"

Another problem is that UBI is coming directly out of the pockets of those same bakery owners. The boost in taxes will just mean another boost in consumer prices.

"Since it is not in the universities’ interest to increase number of students, increasing the money supply for the prospective students with student loans meant that students were now able to pay more for the same thing and that universities could simply increase the tuition fee[1]. Increasing the money supply to students via UBI would have the same effect."

Universities are basically getting welfare. The cash goes directly from the government to the university. They don't really care how the student actually pays it back and also know that it can't be declared in a bankruptcy.

The result is ridiculous prices, universities getting rich, and students being in debt for decades. It would be better to take student loans out of the equation completely. We would have a more even playing field because universities wouldn't be able to charge those ridiculous prices and be forced to lower tuition costs. They also wouldn't be getting a guaranteed income stream and would have to work much harder to keep students.

We have the same problem with healthcare. Because insurance companies are paying the costs directly, the hospitals can charge $150 for a bottle of Aspirin and the patient only sees the cost after it was covered.

If you take insurance companies out, costs will go way down because hospitals will actually have to charge the real free market rates instead of the controlled market we have now.

Government controlled markets, while sounds great in theory, usually means the consumer suffers.

I keep hearing that you will 'go bankrupt' with every minor health issue in the US. Do you actually live in the US? Have you used US healthcare?

I pay for my own health insurance (because I own my own company) and while not cheap, it's affordable. I think I pay around $250 US/month. I get regular checkups included (most prescriptions cost me $10 or less) and I had a colonoscopy last year and it cost me less that $50.

If I had major surgery, I would be out a couple of grand. While it does have problems, it's nowhere near as bad as many would like you to think.

'hacker' has also changed meanings. There isn't much you can do about it. That's the nature of language.

Copyright infringement isn't theft, it's counterfeiting. It's 100X worse because instead of just stealing some physical items like a television, it's devaluing the television to the point where it can no longer be sold.

It was a rhetorical question. If He wrote about Islam, he would get death threats.

My point is that the current trend is to shit on Christianity and praise Islam.

You really don't need to be a passionate programmer. However, passion will bring you much further when you have to work on something that's boring, tedious, or has no real end in sight.

1000% this. I've had multiple co-founders over the years that love the idea of being part of a startup, but were unwilling to sacrifice any free time and accomplish anything.

If you've had more than 3 meetings with no commitment of time, walk away.

Why focus on just Christianity? Islam started as an 'obscure cult', like most religions.

I actually hope we can loosen the restrictions from the FDA. One of the main reasons our drugs in the US are so expensive is because it can take $100 million and a decade of clinical trials to actually get something approved.

This broken model creates an environment where a few companies own most drugs and consumer prices skyrocket.

If it brings more competition ad reduces our prices? I'm all in.

"Users were apparently willing to tolerate a degree of advertising (which, BTW, is a loooong way from any kind of a pact), but after a point they'll turn the tap off if there are tools available to do so."

The issue is that it's no longer in the hands of the users. It's in the hands of the creators of the Adblock software. They decide what is actually displayed and they even have a white list where a company can pay to get onto it.

This will backfire on the people rejoicing, however. Instead of advertisements on sites, we will see entire advertisements disguised as actual content (which can't be blocked).

Real journalism costs money. Plain and simple. When you take that out of the equation (because Adblock has destroyed many revenue streams), you get articles written on speculation that can be done from the comfort of an office chair.

Online advertisements are one of the only ways a person without a big company can actually make a living. I've never really understood this massive push against it from Hacker news, which is supposed to be about startups and the startup community.

I guess an actual path to profitability is never factored into the equation.

Mysterious deaths surrounding the Hillary/Podesta leaks: a conspiracy theory.

Mysterious deaths surrounding Russia and the DNC email leaks that showed us that they have been colluding with the media to destroy all political opinions: news.

The swamp did need to be drained. We forget so quickly (or bury) all of the damning emails from the DNC. The collusion with the press to destroy Bernie Sanders and all of Hillary's enemies, the fake protesters they hired, the racist and sexist terms they used throughout different party communications while at the same time excoriating anyone that they think is racist or sexist.

We also can't forget all of the blood money HRC and her husband have received from the financial industry over the years for their speeches and favors. And in her own words, HRC was also against marijuana in all forms (this can be found in her emails).

The Russian hack scandal, which really had no conclusive proof, was just a distraction away from the message (the corrupt and horrible DNC) and towards the messenger (the 90s called).

What shocked me was that seemingly intelligent people in the IT and security fields came to the conclusion that because a person has a Russian IP address, they must be physically located in Russia or working for Putin. I've been on a computer since I was 12 and know that this is bullshit. It's trivial for someone to: obtain a Russian IP address, use the Russian language to type out a message or email, and make references to Russian political figures and history (this was all the 'conclusive' evidence).

I also find it ironic that my local station (and many other news organizations) for weeks were showing a ballot box and implying that the Russians hacked the election through some sort of voter fraud. Yet, when Trump wants to investigate voter fraud, those same news organizations said there is absolutely none.

..and then I have to ask the question: Why are we listening to the same assholes that colluded with the DNC (the mainstream media) to destroy Bernie Sanders again?

I find no problem with temporarily banning immigrants from those countries until we have a better vetting system in place. It's actually one of the more intelligent things Trump has suggested.

Obama, for instance, put a temporary ban on citizens from Iraq (many other presidents have done the same thing). The difference is that he was seen as a god and the press wouldn't dare write something that would disparage him. Most people probably didn't even know about the ban.

However, I do have a problem with banning green card holders and travelers coming back to the US. There also needs to be some time to think things through and figure everything out with Homeland Security.

If this ever actually came to fruition, it would be a disaster.

No Federal funding from the United States, The Republicans would pretty much win any future US election because the Democrats are losing major electoral college votes, and there would be a mass exodus of business owners and anyone with considerable wealth.

Within a few years, it would become a country not unlike Mexico.