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I truely thought this line was dead. Ive already seen socialists use the fact that everyone knows this isnt true to make fun of their opponents. "Take your government hands of my medicare, lmao trumpies really have no idea how the world works. They totally didnt just believe the lie our predecessors sold them, no, this is totally evidence that we are the ones you should listen to". But I guess theres always someone. How do you exist at a TheMotte-level of political awareness into the present day?
It is in fact very easy to tell that there is parasitism here. You just need to compare the "premiums" with the expected pay-out. This could in theory involve complicated statistics, but fortunately government programms dont even pretend to take riskfactors into account (in fact, politicians are often proud that they dont), and the amount you pay is determined almost entirely by your income, which the payouts are often inversely proportional to.
The presence of some insurance effect does not negate redistribution which numerically dwarfs it. The point, though valid in principle, is irrelevant to complaints made about actually existing government budgets.
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