Do mustachians support universal basic income?

[LennStar]

I cannot wait to get layed off and collect free money. I refuse to work only to have it transferred to others in a disregard for the value of my time and effort.

Well, you are free to set up yourself in the Inner Mongolia, the Australian outback or the Sahara if you don't like the thing called society.

Roughly half of the people in modern societies live off of the production of others. Even more if you count such unproductive things like opera or corporate laywer.

[TheContinentalOp]

I cannot wait to get layed off and collect free money. I refuse to work only to have it transferred to others in a disregard for the value of my time and effort.

Well, you are free to set up yourself in the Inner Mongolia, the Australian outback or the Sahara if you don't like the thing called society.

Roughly half of the people in modern societies live off of the production of others. Even more if you count such unproductive things like opera or corporate laywer.

I guess it kind of means what it means to '"live off the production of others."  Unless you are some mountain man , off the grid in back-country Utah, some of what you consume is the production of others.

Also, I am not sure why opera and corporate lawyers are considered unproductive. People pay money to be entertained by the opera singer. The corporation who employs the lawyer presumably benefits from the lawyer's expertise and output.

[TheContinentalOp]

What Do Prime-Age 'NILF' Men Do All Day? A Cautionary on Universal Basic Income

Spoilers: They watch TV and spend plenty of time on the Internet.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-do-prime-age-nilf-men-do-all-day-a-cautionary-on-universal-basic-income

[dandarc]

Conservative Think Tank hates progressive policy! Up next: Water is wet!

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies

[American GenX]

Conservative Think Tank hates progressive policy! Up next: Water is wet!

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies

A progressive policy (UBI?) that hurts the most needy while giving to the most to the people that don't need it?  Targeted assistance to the truly poor, particularly the elderly relying on SS (or nothing), makes a  lot more sense to me.

[LennStar]

I cannot wait to get layed off and collect free money. I refuse to work only to have it transferred to others in a disregard for the value of my time and effort.

Well, you are free to set up yourself in the Inner Mongolia, the Australian outback or the Sahara if you don't like the thing called society.

Roughly half of the people in modern societies live off of the production of others. Even more if you count such unproductive things like opera or corporate laywer.

I guess it kind of means what it means to '"live off the production of others."  Unless you are some mountain man , off the grid in back-country Utah, some of what you consume is the production of others.

Also, I am not sure why opera and corporate lawyers are considered unproductive. People pay money to be entertained by the opera singer. The corporation who employs the lawyer presumably benefits from the lawyer's expertise and output.

See, that's why I brought up these examples.

What is productive? Only if you get paid?
That would mean the same work done is productive if paid (like swindling researchers out of their scarce funds for publishing their papers) and unproductive if not paid (like the standard peer-review process which normally does not pay hte reviewers).

Or only if you produce something? Then opera certainly is unproductive, because it only consumes (a lot).

And corporate laywers? For the society they actually provide negative worth, even though they get paid a lot.

Conservative Think Tank hates progressive policy! Up next: Water is wet!

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies

A progressive policy (UBI?) that hurts the most needy while giving to the most to the people that don't need it?  Targeted assistance to the truly poor, particularly the elderly relying on SS (or nothing), makes a  lot more sense to me.

With the only drawbacks that it is expensive and often does not work (admittedly because the "conservatives" try to make it that way, like demanding a driver's license (or some hard to get costly other document) to get food stamps. Real case.)

[kite]

Conservative Think Tank hates progressive policy! Up next: Water is wet!

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies

Their conservative leanings don't make them wrong on this point. What many proponents of UBI seem to have forgotten is that Charles Murray was touting UBI before they'd ever heard of it.  There are plenty of conservatives & libertarians who would welcome a roll back of targeted aid that is costly to administer in favor of a universal benefit from a government which treats all citizens equally, regardless of need or individual circumstances. Politics makes strange bedfellows still.

[dandarc]

BS article does absolutely nothing but paint a picture of a subset workers being lazy - tell me how that matters at all to this discussion.

[kite]

BS article does absolutely nothing but paint a picture of a subset workers being lazy - tell me how that matters at all to this discussion.

Adds more color than ad hominem criticism.
Given that the earlier arguments for UBI and this recent argument against UBI are both published by persons associated with the same think tank, it is very much relevant.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

I'd be completely fine with a 'universal' benefit as long as it was genuinely universal and capped. I.e., if you plough through your $10k/$12k/$24k per year per adult you're on your own. Have fun with that.

[mathlete]

Conservative Think Tank hates progressive policy! Up next: Water is wet!

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies

A progressive policy (UBI?) that hurts the most needy while giving to the most to the people that don't need it?  Targeted assistance to the truly poor, particularly the elderly relying on SS (or nothing), makes a  lot more sense to me.

I think a good UBI would probably be progressive. i.e., it wouldn't do away with programs that are better handled at scale (like free healthcare and childcare ideally). And at the higher incomes, it'd effectively be taxed away anyway.

[dandarc]

Conservative Think Tank hates progressive policy! Up next: Water is wet!

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies

A progressive policy (UBI?) that hurts the most needy while giving to the most to the people that don't need it?  Targeted assistance to the truly poor, particularly the elderly relying on SS (or nothing), makes a  lot more sense to me.

I think a good UBI would probably be progressive. i.e., it wouldn't do away with programs that are better handled at scale (like free healthcare and childcare ideally). And at the higher incomes, it'd effectively be taxed away anyway.

+1 - and I'd think in the short term, you don't take anything away from anyone. This idea that UBI has to be paid for by reducing existing social services assumes this somehow has to be "paid for" and further is a very specific way to pay for it. Sure doesn't seem that the federal government has any compelling reason to balance the budget on any time scale. Start the UBI without a bunch of other changes and see what happens. If we do need to net out the expense somehow, tax the rich before cutting other social programs.

The proposed expanded child tax credit (democrats version, not Romney's who insists on cutting other services) is a pretty good example of how this might be done, albeit at a smaller scale.

[TheContinentalOp]

I cannot wait to get layed off and collect free money. I refuse to work only to have it transferred to others in a disregard for the value of my time and effort.

Well, you are free to set up yourself in the Inner Mongolia, the Australian outback or the Sahara if you don't like the thing called society.

Roughly half of the people in modern societies live off of the production of others. Even more if you count such unproductive things like opera or corporate laywer.

I guess it kind of means what it means to '"live off the production of others."  Unless you are some mountain man , off the grid in back-country Utah, some of what you consume is the production of others.

Also, I am not sure why opera and corporate lawyers are considered unproductive. People pay money to be entertained by the opera singer. The corporation who employs the lawyer presumably benefits from the lawyer's expertise and output.

See, that's why I brought up these examples.

What is productive? Only if you get paid?
That would mean the same work done is productive if paid (like swindling researchers out of their scarce funds for publishing their papers) and unproductive if not paid (like the standard peer-review process which normally does not pay hte reviewers).

Or only if you produce something? Then opera certainly is unproductive, because it only consumes (a lot).

And corporate laywers? For the society they actually provide negative worth, even though they get paid a lot.

Conservative Think Tank hates progressive policy! Up next: Water is wet!

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Family_Studies

A progressive policy (UBI?) that hurts the most needy while giving to the most to the people that don't need it?  Targeted assistance to the truly poor, particularly the elderly relying on SS (or nothing), makes a  lot more sense to me.

With the only drawbacks that it is expensive and often does not work (admittedly because the "conservatives" try to make it that way, like demanding a driver's license (or some hard to get costly other document) to get food stamps. Real case.)

Opera only consumes?  Maybe opera isn't your thing, but others will enjoy the performance.

And doesn't it matter what the corporate lawyer is actually doing? If he crafts a 1000+ page commercial lease for a 50-story office building, I'm pretty sure that has value and is productive for both the landlord and the tenant.

Getting paid voluntarily is a pretty good approximation for productive, but it's not conclusive. If I paint a room in my house, my wife goes grocery shopping, or my kid mows the lawn, none of us are getting paid, but it's productive. Maybe useful would be a better word than productive.

Sure scammers and highwaymen shouldn't be considered useful or productive. Maybe the old Libertarian ideal of "no force or fraud" should come into play when constructing the definition.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

It seems UBI is really just a front for greater welfare (that's what a "progressive UBI" would entail).

I don't see the point of welfare unless it's to:
- Provide basics (healthcare, education, shelter, warmth, food)
- Ameliorate general inequality of opportunity (free childcare, free tuition for disadvantaged children, preferential university admission for poor students)

Besides that I think we can let society sort itself out. If you have all the basics provided for and you have a system in place to ensure that children aren't entirely doomed by their parents' poor choices (although on some level, parents need to take responsibility for their shitty decision to have a kid), I don't want any further redistribution. Let people keep what they earn.

[LennStar]

It seems UBI is really just a front for greater welfare (that's what a "progressive UBI" would entail).

I don't see the point of welfare unless it's to:
- Provide basics (healthcare, education, shelter, warmth, food)
- Ameliorate general inequality of opportunity (free childcare, free tuition for disadvantaged children, preferential university admission for poor students)

Thank you for pointing out the areas in which an UBI would be better than existing systems. Though depending on your place of living the second half may already me in place. (I admit I am surprised at your very communistic last point.)

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

In some ways I'm more progressive than even hard left US politicians. I advocate for all university admissions to be intra-school based. (So, you go to a shitty school, great - it's easier for you to get into Harvard. You go to a great school with heaps of smart pupils - well, good luck getting into Harvard.)

I advocate for estates to be capped at something like $500k-$1000k and a 90-99% estate tax levied on the rest.

I advocate for free tuition for poor students and general affirmative action to help racial minorities/women.

Basically, anything that disrupts intergenerational transfer of wealth is a good thing.

So I'm not a typical neoliberal...I genuinely believe in equality of opportunity.

But then once those things are in place I don't want any more redistribution.  If even with these systems in place you fail, then, well, you kinda deserve it. And beyond a safety net, I'm not interested in catering or pandering to the middle class.

[LennStar]

But then once those things are in place I don't want any more redistribution.  If even with these systems in place you fail, then, well, you kinda deserve it. And beyond a safety net, I'm not interested in catering or pandering to the middle class.

It is interesting how different countries view it. US people practically all directly jump to "I don't want to pay rich people /middle class anything" while Europeans generally go the "I don't give money to people who not want to work" road.

The first ones are ignoring that taxes will mean it's likely a net loss to (upper) middle class - or at least should be, we know their interests are a lot more cared after than the interests of the poor).

The second people are ignoring that a) it's now the same, just with more bureocracy, and b) if it is not money that makes people not work, it's likely their work will increase, both for psychological and economic factors. If you don't have to work 1,5 years in an "1€ job" to earn your driver's licence so you can increase (more customers) your already working business (real example I met), but can instead live on UBI for the 3 month you need to do it, it saves a lot fo time and certainly boosts motivation.

[dandarc]

Not sure that's a US / Europe thing necessarily. Plenty of people in the US object on the "we don't want to subsidize folks who could work but choose not to".

At least in the US, there's also a not-so-subtle classism at play. Grandmother of one of my nieces was complaining about cost of infant formula. "Isn't niece on medicaid? Should automatically be eligible for WIC which would pay for all of the formula." "Oh that's not for us . . ." Won't spend a couple of hours every 3 months in a government office to get $200/ month in benefits out of some warped sense of pride. But if we call it a 'tax credit', no worries at all taking that particular form of government benefits.

[American GenX]

But then once those things are in place I don't want any more redistribution.  If even with these systems in place you fail, then, well, you kinda deserve it. And beyond a safety net, I'm not interested in catering or pandering to the middle class.

It is interesting how different countries view it. US people practically all directly jump to "I don't want to pay rich people /middle class anything" while Europeans generally go the "I don't give money to people who not want to work" road.

That's not true at all because Americans are so split that you can generalize about their political beliefs.  There are a large number of socialists, but there are many capitalists as well that don't believe the government should be distributing their income to the rich or the poor.  Personally, I'm more supportive of health care services being provided and shoring up the system to help senior citizens rather than paying off student loans and giving UBI to young people that have decades ahead of them to earn a decent living rather than depending on taxpayers to a pay their way.  Eventually, they will be senior citizens themselves and need the assistance.  For now, they should be working without expecting handouts.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

I just can't understand why people want redistribution other than to
1. Provide a safety net
2. Shore up equality of opportunity, education, etc (and prevent excessive transmission of family wealth among generations)

Otherwise life is what you make of it.

I wish we had a better argument about exactly what sort of inequality we're prepared to tolerate. Many people who oppose inequality would seem to oppose it for its own sake and I don't see the appeal with that. If people have differing abilities then they should not be restricted from having differing outcomes. Obviously I want someone who has merit/ability to not be blocked by structural factors (like lack of access to schooling and so on) but answer me this - if someone doesn't have the merit/ability, and has had the opportunity to receive a good education and hasn't taken it, or can't exploit it, why should that person have resources redistributed to him or her above the level needed for a frugal, stable existence?

[LennStar]

I just can't understand why people want redistribution...

devils advocate:

I just can't understand why people don't want redistribution.

What's so good at having a lot of people with not enough money, and a lot of people with more money than they need? It's bad for both sides!

[Optimiser]

I just can't understand why people want redistribution...

Another thought is that the productivity of society has increased greatly over the last 10/20/50/however many years. Some of those productivity increases have trickled down, but a lot of the benefits have been collected by those at the very top. I think it is reasonable that more of that benefit should be redistributed to society as a whole. Kind of like a dividend for everyone, not just those who own the capital. Not full blown communism, just capitalism where no one starts from zero.

For example, you work in widget factory. In 1990 your factory turned out 1000 widgets per factory worker per year. Now it's 2021 your factory produces 2000 widgets per worker per year. This is great news for the shareholders of the widget factory. For you on the factory floor though, it's probably not so great. You may have had your hours cut or your position eliminated, because demand was somewhat fixed, but your hourly rate hasn't changed in real terms. Or maybe the company now needs robot technicians instead of manual labor, and you don't have that skill set.

If there if a portion of the improved productivity is redistributed from the stockholders to everyone through a UBI, getting your hours cut isn't so big of a deal. Or you could even use your UBI to help you save up to go back to school so you could learn the skills you need to get a job more suited to the modern economy.

...other than to
1. Provide a safety net

I think this blog post does a good job explaining why a UBI makes a better safety net: https://www.scottsantens.com/engineering-argument-for-unconditional-universal-basic-income-ubi-fault-tolerance-graceful-failure-redundancy

2. Shore up equality of opportunity, education, etc (and prevent excessive transmission of family wealth among generations)

I think estate taxes should start at a lower threshold and be more progressive and would be a good way to fund a UBI, along with a small value added tax and maybe a carbon tax.

Here is another argument for why someone might want redistribution: https://www.scottsantens.com/wouldn-t-a-basic-income-just-be-stealing-from-those-who-earned-their-money

[American GenX]

I just can't understand why people want redistribution other than to
1. Provide a safety net

Pretty much that.  If someone is young and capable of working, they shouldn't be getting free handouts.  People with jobs shouldn't be getting a UBI funded on the back of seniors and poor people who will lose their other social services, receive no net gain, and pay higher taxes to pay UBI to the wealthy people that don't need it.  UBI is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of, and I've heard of some pretty bad ones.   I heard the other day that some "mothers" took out a full page ad in the New York Times because they are wanting the Biden admin to handout $2400/mo to mothers on top of all of the other tax credits and stimulus money they are already getting.  And for men who are raising kids on their own, they say, "screw them" because it affected more women, so the men don't count.  It's outrageous.   These people chose to have kids and are already getting tax breaks/credits and extra stimulus and getting subsidized by other tax payers who have to pay extra to make up the difference.  If someone has kids, they need to take more responsibility for paying for their own kids, not expect others to pick up the bill.  I won't even get into the calls by the socialists saying $50,000 of student loan debt should be forgiven - and screw all the people that busted their asses and made the effort to pay off theirs as they were supposed to while rewarding the slackers that are building up the debt and not making payments, waiting for other taxpayers to take care of it.  It's crazy.   

[Optimiser]

I just can't understand why people want redistribution other than to
1. Provide a safety net

UBI is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of, and I've heard of some pretty bad ones.   I heard the other day that some "mothers" took out a full page ad in the New York Times because they are wanting the Biden admin to handout $2400/mo to mothers on top of all of the other tax credits and stimulus money they are already getting.  And for men who are raising kids on their own, they say, "screw them" because it affected more women, so the men don't count.  It's outrageous.

What you are describing is not a UBI, because it is not universal

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

I just can't understand why people want redistribution...

devils advocate:

I just can't understand why people don't want redistribution.

What's so good at having a lot of people with not enough money, and a lot of people with more money than they need? It's bad for both sides!

If you're the one suggesting the active thing (redistribution) rather than the passive thing, it's on you to justify it. Otherwise it's like me saying "I don't understand why I shouldn't take your money. Let me play devil's advocate."

Also, in what sense in my scheme would people have "not enough money"? They have all the basics taken care of - by definition that's enough money.

If I have 10x the earning power of someone else then I don't want that unnecessarily diluted. I could pay taxes so my earning power goes down to 8x to ensure no one goes without, but I don't want my earning power to go down to 6x just to make others feel better.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

I just can't understand why people want redistribution...

Another thought is that the productivity of society has increased greatly over the last 10/20/50/however many years. Some of those productivity increases have trickled down, but a lot of the benefits have been collected by those at the very top. I think it is reasonable that more of that benefit should be redistributed to society as a whole. Kind of like a dividend for everyone, not just those who own the capital. Not full blown communism, just capitalism where no one starts from zero.

For example, you work in widget factory. In 1990 your factory turned out 1000 widgets per factory worker per year. Now it's 2021 your factory produces 2000 widgets per worker per year. This is great news for the shareholders of the widget factory. For you on the factory floor though, it's probably not so great. You may have had your hours cut or your position eliminated, because demand was somewhat fixed, but your hourly rate hasn't changed in real terms. Or maybe the company now needs robot technicians instead of manual labor, and you don't have that skill set.

If there if a portion of the improved productivity is redistributed from the stockholders to everyone through a UBI, getting your hours cut isn't so big of a deal. Or you could even use your UBI to help you save up to go back to school so you could learn the skills you need to get a job more suited to the modern economy.

...other than to
1. Provide a safety net

I think this blog post does a good job explaining why a UBI makes a better safety net: https://www.scottsantens.com/engineering-argument-for-unconditional-universal-basic-income-ubi-fault-tolerance-graceful-failure-redundancy

2. Shore up equality of opportunity, education, etc (and prevent excessive transmission of family wealth among generations)

I think estate taxes should start at a lower threshold and be more progressive and would be a good way to fund a UBI, along with a small value added tax and maybe a carbon tax.

Here is another argument for why someone might want redistribution: https://www.scottsantens.com/wouldn-t-a-basic-income-just-be-stealing-from-those-who-earned-their-money

It's on the worker to bargain with the employer. If he or she thinks productivity has gone up but wages haven't, then there's a gap there and it needs to be bargained for. To be clear, I'm not against unions, so the worker can either bargain individually or bargain with unions. But life entails bargains.

Maybe a worker can't get ahead because of a chronic illness or family circumstances. My scheme would try to alleviate that. Free healthcare and free support for poor families to give their children tuition and a better shot at getting into a good school.

Maybe a worker can't get ahead because he or she lacks the talent or the drive. Well, that's too bad.

A lot of the objections raised against a 'meritocracy' go to the difficulty of prising open entrenched advantage. I totally agree. Thus, the estate tax should go towards progressive welfare (ie welfare for poor people), particularly regarding health and education. It shouldn't go towards a UBI. Because UBI is welfare for the middle class.

I'm quite fine with overpaying the poor so that they can't say they don't have the opportunity to compete. Give every poor family with children $20k a year for all I care, in the form of tuition vouchers, food vouchers, scholarships, music lesson vouchers, etc. I'm okay with that because then people no longer have the excuse that they didn't get a fair opportunity to succeed. I'm not okay with paying the middle class a cent. They don't need it.

[Paul der Krake]

On a more fundamental level, why should the factory floor worker share the gains of improved efficiency processes he had no hand in developing?

[pdxmonkey]

I support a basic and I mean basic ubi. Below the federal poverty line basic along with universal healthcare.

Enough for a tiny studio apartment... Think college dorm sized basic and maybe even with a shared bathroom. Enough for food and utilities. If you want anything else it's up to you to work for it. If you want a 1 br maybe your can afford that with a roommate on the ubi... Maybe not.

[pdxmonkey]

On a more fundamental level, why should the factory floor worker share the gains of improved efficiency processes he had no hand in developing?

Because it takes higher skill to operate the improved plant generally speaking. Also the workers indirectly benefit from improved efficiency via lower cost of goods. The rest of the workers get laid off and can go open a new factory manufacturing some other new thing that was too expensive to produce before. Everyone wins long term. Short term summer people are out of work a while which is unpleasant at minimum

[LennStar]

Pretty much that.  If someone is young and capable of working, they shouldn't be getting free handouts.  People with jobs shouldn't be getting a UBI funded on the back of seniors and poor people who will lose their other social services, receive no net gain, and pay higher taxes to pay UBI to the wealthy people that don't need it.   

Most of the people mentioned here as losers would benefit from an UBI. Of course it would need a "leftist" UBI, not one that the Small State nuts want.

It's on the worker to bargain with the employer. If he or she thinks productivity has gone up but wages haven't, then there's a gap there and it needs to be bargained for. To be clear, I'm not against unions, so the worker can either bargain individually or bargain with unions. But life entails bargains.

You know why unions even exist? Because there is an inherent difference in bargaining power. And that is even with bargaining.

"The slave could have bargained with the lion", said the manager of the collosseum.

Give every poor family with children $20k a year for all I care, in the form of tuition vouchers, food vouchers, scholarships, music lesson vouchers, etc.

Why not just the money instead and safe all that inefficiency inherent to vouchers?

On a more fundamental level, why should the factory floor worker share the gains of improved efficiency processes he had no hand in developing?

I guess you have never heard of "idea management"?
In Germany that is even a standard content in contracts with unions. Because if workers have ideas, it can bring great profit to the company, and workers want a share of that.
There are workers for car makers (so the upper echelon of income as far as manual labor is involved) who double their income with the % of what their ideas save the company.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

You know why unions even exist? Because there is an inherent difference in bargaining power. And that is even with bargaining.

Even if I accept your argument as true, the simple solution is to allow unions.

And I don't accept your argument as true. When I was a first year lawyer, yes, I had little bargaining power. By the time I was a fifth year lawyer I was billing $1m a year for my firm and I was gently, nicely holding it to ransom till I got what I wanted...and even then they wouldn't pay me enough so I took my long-service leave and left. I could have done anything I wanted - I held all the chips.

Anyone who's good enough gets the bargaining power. Someone who's not good enough gets the safety net of universal basic services and unions.

Why not just the money instead and safe all that inefficiency inherent to vouchers?

As I stated before, I have absolutely no issue with giving someone $20k in cash a year instead of $20k in vouchers; the problem is, though, we'd have to agree that if they misspend the $20k or use it on shit (drugs, gambling) instead of what it's meant to be used for, there's no more in reserve. Otherwise we're paying people multiple instalments of UBI.

So that's the issue really - UBI is never enough, if given solely in cash form, unless you're going to tell me that someone who spends it immediately on drugs is then going to be turned away from the food bank?

And UBI by itself, even if it was enough to theoretically counteract all the inequities in opportunity that we genuinely want to counteract, won't do so unless everyone spends it rationally - which they won't.

So if we used your idea and gave everyone cash instead of vouchers, and people didn't spend it rationally, I bet you'd be saying we didn't have enough redistribution. Even if we did.

[LennStar]

Why not just the money instead and safe all that inefficiency inherent to vouchers?

As I stated before, I have absolutely no issue with giving someone $20k in cash a year instead of $20k in vouchers; the problem is, though, we'd have to agree that if they misspend the $20k or use it on shit (drugs, gambling) instead of what it's meant to be used for, there's no more in reserve. Otherwise we're paying people multiple instalments of UBI.

So that's the issue really - UBI is never enough, if given solely in cash form, unless you're going to tell me that someone who spends it immediately on drugs is then going to be turned away from the food bank?

I guess you are from the US? because that sounds so like it.
Here in Europe we have a different tradition, the humanism.
Here you have a right to be treated for your illness even if you cannot afford it and caused it courself - may it be because of drugs (legal or illegal), behavior (skiing is the main reason for some types of operations on under 30 year olds) or stupidity (driving too fast).

Sometimes I get angry about that (more precisely about the people doing things like illegal car races in the middle of the city, I want to beat them up not heal them), but in general terms I fully agree to this stance and "human dignity is inviolable" as our constitution says. I personally think that is the best sentence in all constitutions in the world.

[robartsd]

Here in Europe we have a different tradition, the humanism.
Here you have a right to be treated for your illness even if you cannot afford it and caused it courself - may it be because of drugs (legal or illegal), behavior (skiing is the main reason for some types of operations on under 30 year olds) or stupidity (driving too fast).

For emergency medical services, you can't be turned away in the US either. One problem with our system is that too many things end up in the emergency department that would be better and cheaper to deal with elsewhere earlier. Generally the poor do have some access to government sponsored healthcare which should provide all necessary medical care (necessary defined by bureaucrats not the patient's doctor, limited available providers, often long wait times, may be difficult to navigate coverage, might not be available to undocumented foreigners residing here).

[Cool Friend]

UBI experiment success story!

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/stocktons-basic-income-experiment-pays-off/618174/

The cash transfer reduced income volatility, for one: Households getting the cash saw their month-to-month earnings fluctuate 46 percent, versus the control group’s 68 percent. The families receiving the $500 a month tended to spend the money on essentials, including food, home goods, utilities, and gas. (Less than 1 percent went to cigarettes and alcohol.) The cash also doubled the households’ capacity to pay unexpected bills, and allowed recipient families to pay down their debts. Individuals getting the cash were also better able to help their families and friends, providing financial stability to the broader community. 

[dandarc]

@Cool Friend - I like this line as well:

The best way to get people out of poverty is just to get them out of poverty; the best way to offer families more resources is just to offer them more resources.

[Optimiser]

Also worth noting:

In the 1st year recipients went from 28% employed to 40% employed compared to the control group who went from 32% employed to 37% employed.

Recipients of guaranteed income were healthier, showing less depression and anxiety and enhanced wellbeing.

Full white paper is here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6039d612b17d055cac14070f/t/603ef1194c474b329f33c329/1614737690661/SEED_Preliminary+Analysis-SEEDs+First+Year_Final+Report_Individual+Pages+-2.pdf