

Health Insurance vs. Food Insurance - api
http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2013/06/12/health-insurance-vs-food-insurance/

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api
I 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."

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maxharris
No, 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.

