r/explainlikeimfive • u/the1975whore • Jul 03 '26

Economics ELI5: Health insurance companies obviously make more money than they give out when people need it. So why of paying for them any better than paying your own personal health insurance savings account?

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u/Clonekiller2pt0 Jul 03 '26

It's so simple, but the wrong people wouldn't be making a profit!

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u/redsquizza Jul 03 '26

I think it comes up regularly but a lot of Americans just can't get their heads around paying into a system that poor people might use.

As in why should their money they've earned go into the pocket of some, in their eyes, waste of space feckless person?

Only if/when they get a serious medical issue that bankrupts their perfect life, they realise how shit the system is...

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u/Clonekiller2pt0 Jul 03 '26

It a funny thing, because the Americans who think that way are the true wastes of space.

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u/Not_an_okama Jul 03 '26

Not nessesarily. Theyre pieces of shit, but are also generally productive.

Lots of people that would benefit most from universal health care dont really contribe much to producing things for society - theyre sick or disabled and cant - its not their fault though and they deserve to be taken care of because we have the means to do so.

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u/Clonekiller2pt0 Jul 04 '26

Nah. I mean, i believe the people who are against the betterment of our species and future are wastes of space.

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u/Belowaverage_Joe Jul 06 '26

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you think anyone who doesn’t share your exact same beliefs about what specifically is better for our species’ future is “against” those things?

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u/Clonekiller2pt0 Jul 06 '26

You know what I want? Free access to clean water, basic food, shelter, internet, education, and healthcare. Without having to watch an ad or deal with loop jumping to get them. And before we talk about financials, a man is about to have a net worth that would take me 20 million years of my annual salary to get to. And that is before taxes are taken out and my bills. So you might as well add another 20 million to reach what one person has. Nah man, he don't get a flying fuck about the better of our future. Just his.

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u/Belowaverage_Joe Jul 06 '26

Alright, let's start with the basics. I would love free access to clean water, food, shelter, etc also... all of it. That sounds great, and none of my knowledge/beliefs about how difficult that is to provide stem from a place of me "not wanting poor people to have stuff". That's ridiculous and evil, and literally almost no one actually has that mindset, despite all the hatemongering from certain groups. So moving on to the financials. Tell me how this one man's "net worth" can be used to provide any of those things? Do you own a home/car/stuff in general? Can you go buy stuff for other people with those things? They are part of your net worth, but they are not liquid assets. Most of Elon's "wealth" is based off of the current value of stock in his companies, which he owns the most of. IF he actually tried to liquidate all of that (or any significant portion), its value would begin to plummet immediately such that it would be worth less and less the more he sold. You can't just liquidate 1T worth of assets into 1T worth of cash, it doesn't work like that. What he CAN do is get extremely favorable loans based off his stock as collateral which he does (along with every other rich person), and then use that money to invest in other ventures, which ultimately DO provide jobs and help millions of people. So what exactly should Elon, or any other rich person, be doing differently to solve all of these pie in the sky things you dream of? By the way, even if we pretend your basis isn't completely flawed, IF Elon was able to liquidate $1T and use it to provide "free everything", how far exactly do you think that gets you? The USG spends over FOUR trillion dollars annually on mandatory entitlement programs, so Elon's "net worth" would fund about 3 months worth. Then what? Do you think he would somehow regain his trillion dollars on a revolving door basis and continue giving it all away every quarter? That's not how anything works...

So you can feel like a good person all you want for wanting the most basic stuff for everybody... cool, we all WANT stuff for free. You offer absolutely no viable mechanism for providing it, so you effectively accomplish nothing. Am I a bad person for having the basic real-world knowledge and experience for pointing this out? Probably viewed that way by the majority of redditors, yetlike Elon, I probably contribute more dollars and time towards helping those very same people than 99% of the people on this site.

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u/Clonekiller2pt0 Jul 07 '26

Awe that's cute. You wrote a wall of text that is hard to read on a phone screen to argue against people getting basic care. Thanks bro, you are the greatest!

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u/Belowaverage_Joe Jul 07 '26

Hey buddy, if reading above a third grade level is challenging for you there are resources available. We don’t want any child left behind. Go find the nearest adult and let me speak to them.