The problem is entire generations of people voting against themselves are going to have to die off before that happens in this country.
Meanwhile at least hundreds of thousands of kids in SF bay area have a chance not to get the flu this year and spread it everywhere thanks to one man's generosity and thoughtfulness.
My parents used to think the same thing. But somehow, newer generations keep voting against their own interests.
The realization that many people are not actually smart enough to figure their own interests came to me about 10 years ago, and the world made a lot more sense since then.
(the late George Carlin reasoned thus: "Think how dumb the average person is; and now realize that half the population is even dumber than that". It's true, if you assume "dumbness" distribution is symmetric around the mean. Or, just replace "average" with median and it's true by definition.)
Saying "voting against their own interests" is really insulting.
Do we dismiss Bill Gates as being too dumb to care for his own interests when he says his tax rate should go up?
Sometimes people feel differently than you. Even if it would be in their personal selfish interest to agree with you. This doesn't make them stupid. If anything, like when Gates or Buffett talk about how they should be made personally worse off, it shows the courage of their own convictions.
> Saying "voting against their own interests" is really insulting.
I'm sorry to be blunt, but people who find such a statement insulting should get off the internet. That said:
> Do we dismiss Bill Gates as being too dumb to care for his own interests when he says his tax rate should go up?
No, he is caring for his OWN interests in saying that. As does Warren Buffett. Sure, his narrow next year interests are to pay less taxes. But his long term interest is that he will not have to hire a private army to protect his every move because of social unrest. Nor that he will have to finance his own private hospital for his kids, because disease control in communal (non-profit and for-profit) hospitals is breaking down. Nor that he will have to fly in everyone he wants to meet because the road infrastructure is breaking down.
What Bill Gates and Warren Buffett understand is that the US is falling behind, and they don't want that to happen. That IS in their interest.
> Sometimes people feel differently than you. Even if it would be in their personal selfish interest to agree with you.
Yes, and I respect their right to do that, even if there is no logical way, selfish or communal, short term or long term, in which it serves any measurable interest of theirs. But I also reserve the right to call them stupid for it (for being unable to demonstrate to a mythical "objective observer" that their votes support their interests, that is. I won't call them stupid if they can soundly reason about it, even if I disagree with their reasoning)
And I repeat again: Gates and Buffett are talking their interest.
Joe the Plumber is stupid (reminder: he complained that although he is making $40,000 year NOW, he's going to buy his employer's business in the future, and make $200,000/year, and at that point Obama's tax plan to increase tax over $250,000/year would hurt him. His statements were logically incoherent, statistically improbable. And yet, he was sure that he had a solid case against the Obama tax plan of 2008. And so did hundreds of thousnads (perhaps millions) of others. These people are beyond help or hope. (To be clear: there are reasonable considerations against Obama's plan. JtP could not, however, elaborate any that were against his interests)
>> Do we dismiss Bill Gates as being too dumb to care for his own interests when he says his tax rate should go up?
> No, he is caring for his OWN interests in saying that. As does Warren Buffett. Sure, his narrow next year interests are to pay less taxes. But his long term interest is that he will not have to hire a private army to protect his every move because of social unrest. Nor that he will have to finance his own private hospital for his kids, because disease control in communal (non-profit and for-profit) hospitals is breaking down. Nor that he will have to fly in everyone he wants to meet because the road infrastructure is breaking down.
> What Bill Gates and Warren Buffett understand is that the US is falling behind, and they don't want that to happen. That IS in their interest.
Why do these discussions always reduce to "X's own interest" = maximising their bank account?
Gates might (and most likely does) care about generally making the world a better place, and so it is in his interest to suggest measures that ease the burden on low-income people.
(Note that this explanation avoids proposing that he is explicitly staving off worldwide societal collapse so that he and his family can live in peace without paying for private this and private that. It might have this as a side effect, but I find it extremely unlikely that this monetary calculation is what he is thinking.)
So, people who vote 'against their interests' (that is, against what you believe their interests are) but can't articulate why are stupid.
Are people who vote 'for their interests' (that is, for what you believe their interests are) but can't articulate why also stupid?
I'm curious about this non-stupid guy you posited, who can soundly reason about his vote 'against his interest' (that is, against what you believe his interest is) - is there any reason he can't make the same argument as you from his reverse perspective?
I'm wondering why you don't leave your subjective opinions about others' interests out of it, and just say 'people who can't soundly reason about their votes are stupid' - something relatively uncontroversial. Or is your sound reasoning somehow automatically superior to other people's sound reasoning?
> 'against their interests' (that is, against what you believe their interests are)
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!
It's not what I believe their interests are. It's what THEY claim their interests are. I'm sorry, but if you claim to vote to a party because "they believe in small government", despite the last 30 years of data showing that government & expenses grow under said party control much more than under the other party's control, then you are not smart.
The specific example I gave was of JtP, who was (for a short time) a hero and looked upon figure in a section of the population. His vote and declared interests (as declared by himself) do not align, and his reasoning is flawed. And unfortunately, that is extremely common.
> Are people who vote 'for their interests' (that is, for what you believe their interests are) but can't articulate why also stupid?
I don't know. Do you? I mean, you might be doing "the right thing" for the right reasons, in which case you are not stupid, and you might be doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, in which case you are stupid (but lucky). I was discussing cases in which there is apparent evidence for improvement of outcome.
> is there any reason he can't make the same argument as you from his reverse perspective?
No, he can (and should) make the same arugment about me, making me non stupid but working against my interests from his perspective. Which is a base for discussion - he might convince me (or might not, or we might agree to disagree), and find some way to work together.
e.g. one might believe that government should backstop failing banks, and one might not. There might be evidence one way or the other, but probably not conclusive evidence. Either one of us may believe the other is working against his interest. And neither of us will really be wrong.
> and just say 'people who can't soundly reason about their votes are stupid' - something relatively uncontroversial.
That's actually what I was trying to say. I was just focusing about the thing that highlights a subset of those people: working against their own interests. NOT what I believe their interests are (that's what you assume, but never have I said that), but about what they declare their interests to be (I should have been more clear about that).
yes, but bill gates and warren buffet have good, sound reasons that might go against their selfish interests, but leave society as a whole better off. the anti-health-care people have no such reasons, and if they think they do they're badly misinformed, stupid, spiteful (because free healthcare would mean "undeserving" people get a "free ride"), or some mixture of the above.
If you think it's that one-sided, you need to spend more time listening to the opposition. Here are some good reasons to oppose public health care:
- It will be more expensive due to government inefficiency
- There will be no incentive to innovate
- Health care run by government bureaucrats will be uncompassionate, due to distance from the community, and may not appropriately value human life and suffering
- A government that owns your health care can deny it to you
- Public health care options compete unfairly with private ones
You may not think these are good reasons, but a person doesn't have to be badly misinformed, stupid, or spiteful to find them persuasive.
> You may not think these are good reasons, but a person doesn't have to be badly misinformed, stupid, or spiteful to find them persuasive.
Actually, a person has to be willingly uninformed to find them persuasive. Because there are actually case studies to be made, rather than evaluate ideas in vacuum:
- more expensive: It costs much less in every other country that has a single payer system, despite government inefficiency (including the Swiss and German system, where everything is private even though it's single payer, and the UK, France and Israel where it is public or private, and in Canada where it is completely public). And yet, those countries enjoy better health in every possible measurement.
- innovation: Those places all comparable innovation to the US (especially if normalized to "average entrepreneurship level" of the country - e.g. there's much less of that in Germany and France in general, but actually much more in Israel)
- uncompassionate: That is demonstrably not true in the above countries. Furthermore, the private system in the US is already demonstrably not compassionate in any way.
- government can deny health care: Government can do anything it pleases, like jail you, or confiscate all money not on your person at a press of a button (and if you're going through texas, all money on your person as well. Oops, can't pay for healthcare! private healthcare denied for you!) - that's a strawman. If you look at Switzerland, Japan, UK, France, Canada, ..., people who get on the wrong side of the government get better healthcare than people on the right side of the government in the US. No one is denied healthcare! The Israelis even treat the Gazans they bombarded the day before.
- Unfair competition: That's your only statement that is not demonstrably false using a counterexample. In fact, it's true. That's because it makes healthcare into a utility, much like schooling and water supply.
So, one reason that is not based on demonstrably false assumptions. That one is debatable; some people think healthcare should be available like schools, others do not. That should be what is being discussed, not the other reasons.
I actually listened to the other side, and heard one other good reason to avoid public health care:
- There is no reason people who care about their health should subsidize people who don't take care of their health (w.r.t exercise, nutrition, alcohol and drug consumption, regular medical attention, etc) as the latter consume much more healthcare services.
Which is again debatable: The same is true for basically every other shared cost facility (including utilities, fire services, police forces, road use, ...)
If the debate was around that, I would be happy. But somehow, in American politics, it has always been improper to bring up facts and case studies. And recently, it is becoming bad form to use logic.
I'll only nit-pick on your comment "And yet, those countries enjoy better health in every possible measurement."
Yes, they enjoy better health if you measure using blunt tools like "life expectancy". Of course, life expectancy is impacted by many more factors other than health care.
If you measure by things like "access to the latest technology/drugs" and "overall survival from first diagnosis of cancer" the US comes out on top in many, many areas despite the lack of uniform coverage.
Again, using blunt tools like life expectancy, one would argue that the UK has a better healthcare system. Of course, if you're a cystic fibrosis patient and can't afford the $300K/yr for the drug Kalydeco because the NHS doesn't cover it (although nearly every insurance company in the US covers), it doesn't quite seem that great.
I am curious to know if you or some relative actually has CF or if you are merely talking out your ass? I have CF and so does my oldest son. There are countries in Europe with better life expectancy, quality of life, etc for CF than the US has. And that is just the tip of the iceberg for the criticisms I have for your ridiculous statement. So just wondering here if you are merely pulling out inflamatory bs just cuz or if you or some relative happen to be in the 5% of CF patients who have the right alleles to potentially benefit from this specific drug.
Although Kalydeco has been approved, it is unavailable in the UK to most of the patients who qualify for it as it is undergoing a "pricing assessment".
My argument is two fold:
1) Measure such as "life expectancy" are a poor indicator of the quality of health care one receives.
2) Although the US healthcare system has many problems, it covers many, many drugs, often used to treat serious illnesses such as CF and cancer that aren't covered by countries that have single payer systems.
You are the second person on HN to describe me as hostile. I am not. Feverish and crabby perhaps, but not aimed at you. Sorry.
I have gotten off 8 or 9 prescription drugs. I strongly disagree with measuring quality of life by how doped to the gills you can get on someone else's dime. And the measure you dismiss as "blunt" -- longevity -- has its good points as a rule of thumb measure. Stuff that kills usually isn't exactly good for your quality of life prior to killing you.
The drug in question is designed to help a tiny portion of the CF population which is an "orphan disease" to begin with. It is deadly and involves a lot of suffering, so it is a "dread disease". I think using a new drug that has the potential to help a mere 1500 Americans as your example because of the strong emotions associated with "saving" someone from something so awful amounts to a bullshit example.
Also, I worked for an American insurance company for five years. My diagnosis automatically disqualified me from some of their policies. So I suspect the reason American companies claim to cover this drug is because American rules are designed such that people with CF have trouble getting coverage at all. I was an industry insider for five years. I know how they make their money. Spending jillions on a small number of very needy people is not how they line their shareholder's pockets.
Most likely, they won't pay for it in England in part because that would involve actually paying that ridiculously high annual bill because I believe they have some form of national coverage. The American companies may list it as a covered medication, then do everything in their power to not cover any of the mere 1500 Americans with the alleles it is supposed to help. Plus the initial reports were spindoctored to boost company stock. There is a certain amount of hype surrounding this drug. It is generally a bad example to give as some kind of "proof" that Americans have it better.
I also have multiple relatives who have or have had cancer. For brevity's sake, suffice it to say I am not as impressed as you are with the American approach to treating it.
> things like "access to the latest technology/drugs"
That's not actually a valid measure. It is based on the assumption that newer=better. Because of how the US drug market works, as soon as a patent expires, the companies will work hard to discredit older treatments and find new patentable ones, including statistically invalid manipulation of the research data.
> "overall survival from first diagnosis of cancer" the US comes out on top in many, many areas despite the lack of uniform coverage.
While that is true (as far as I know), it comes out on top but not by a significant margin; and the base cancer and diabetes rates are much higher. This may or may not be attributable to the US health system, but I'm sure it does have a part (In the US, you get a pill for everything. In most single payer health systems, you get dietary and exercise advice before you get a pill for something chronic).
> if you're a cystic fibrosis patient and can't afford the $300K/yr for the drug Kalydeco because the NHS doesn't cover it (although nearly every insurance company in the US covers),
Well, Mz just commented about this specific example. I'm somewhat familiar with the Israeli single payer system (I have relatives that unfortunately had to use it extensively) - and it covers every single proven life saving treatment (life extending treatments are covered depending on a cost/benefit model). I don't know what their exact definition for proven is - but the Doc I talked to said it was reasonable (FDA approved, at least 1 year on the market since approval, and a few other similar requirements).
And the most important thing? With the exception of Canada, I think every single payer country lets you have supplemental private insurance if you want, for those live extending treatments, and e.g. if you want to be treated in a private/hotel hospital, or in a different country of your choice.
The dichotomy of "single payer vs. private" is a false one, just like public schools don't eliminate private schools - it just establishes a baseline that everyone has access to, and requires the private industry to deliver significantly more value.
Fine, but I think it's obvious that we're talking about the ignorant subset that have no idea of the disparity between themselves and the top people that they delude themselves into thinking they're just an inch away from... meanwhile voting against the policies that would give them a fighting chance of ACTUAL social mobility.
That's not what I said, I'm not sure how you took that. There are plenty of people who don't mean over 100K that are neither poor, nor have any stake in the wealthy getting tax cuts. I don't understand what you're fighting here, this is a well documented phenomena of delusion.
While the George Carlin quote is tongue-in-cheek, and illusory superiority is a bad trait, it is likely that there are areas in which you are better than your peers, and areas where you are lesser than your peers, and it's not impossible (though by no means easy) to measure this in a mostly-objective way. Same goes for illusory inferiority, which is an even worse problem, because it stops you from getting to your potential.
Personally, I try to measure myself objectively by averaging comparables. e.g. Around age 20, I figured out that I cannot blame my horrible shape on my genetics (even though they were at the root of it) - because I knew too many people with similar problems who were in much better shape than I was. So I figured out what the problem really was, and at age 20, after never having been able to complete a run of one mile, built my endurance to 10 miles over 6 months.
As for superiority, you can write down your predictions, and then evaluate them later; you'll see if your feeling of superiority is justified or illusory.
And it REALLY IS helpful to know when you are superior in some respect - or you'll be wasting your time and effort needlessly.
newer generations keep voting against their own interests.
Yes, this is normal. People do not vote for their own interests. As a rule, they vote unselfishly, in a way that they believe reflects the community or national interests. [1]
If you want people to vote for your idea, you need to convince them that your idea is good policy for everyone, not that it benefits them personally.
Well, we get into the philosophical definition of what "their own interests" are.
But in general - the statement that "people do not vote unselfishly or in a way they believe reflects the community" is false. It is true that some do. I've read some research before from western countries that have a multiparty system (UK, Germany, France, Israel, ...) and with very high probability, people vote for whoever it is their parents do. It's not national interests - it's familial interests and/or identity. (And, sorry, I can't find a link to that right now)
The realization that many people are not actually smart enough to figure their own interests [...]
People do what is in their own interest by definition. That's the only way you can be sure what their interest is. I think what you're complaining about is people not doing what you believe you would do in their position.
> People do what is in their own interest by definition.
No, people do what they believe at that point in time is in their interest, and may (and often do) revise and reverse their beliefs a moment later.
May acts, like voting, are by virtue of being done every e.g. 4 years, are supposed to reflect long term interest.
An analogy: Your immediate interest might be to get the gratification from eating a jelly doughnut, though your long term interest might be to lose weight and be more fit and healthy.
I'm referring to the many people who vote once every 4 years to eat a doughnut every single day of the next 4 years. There are a lot of them, and they are voting against their (long term) interests.
Coerced charity is better than actual charity? If I do good deed X at the point of a gun, I am a better person than someone who does it of their own accord? Really?
It's not about being a better person. Charity is not about being a better person. It's about helping people. And the purpose of government is to put systems in place that can give help to all the people who need it, as close to all the time as possible.
Larry Page is a fantastic man for doing this, OP is not disputing that. But it would be nice if children were guaranteed a flu shot regardless of whether a particular fantastic person decides they should get it. Charity is wonderful, but non-broken government is even better.
Any contractual obligation, any transaction, is implicitly backed by the threat of violence. If you believe free enterprise can be more effective than government assistance, you believe "coerced charity" is better.
The difference is that a person can opt-out of a transaction or contract in free enterprise. Don't sign the contract, and there's no threat of violence, implicit or otherwise.
On the other hand, there's no way for a person to opt-out of government coercion.
@Cushman History has shown pretty clearly that governments on the more-coercive side of the spectrum have caused more death and destruction than those on the less-coercive side.
A government coercing dollars out of a population by force and a society that is based on using products produced by people other than themselves are two different things altogether.
> History has shown pretty clearly that governments on the more-coercive side of the spectrum have caused more death and destruction than those on the less-coercive side.
I'm not seeing it. Absent governments in the third world cause quite a bit of death and destruction every year.
> A government coercing dollars out of a population by force and a society that is based on using products produced by people other than themselves are two different things altogether.
Until somebody steals something. Then you've got two options: Either you let them take it, in which case you're communist and don't have property, or you chase them down and make them give it back, in which case you're a despot and every transaction made is only made with your implicit consent.
Of course you can-- you can move somewhere else. But you'll be likely to find that places without "government coercion", i.e. government, are not as much nicer as you had imagined.
Many millions of people are materially dependent on individual corporations, with no meaningful ability to opt out. Not really seeing the difference here.
"Many millions of people are materially dependent on individual corporations, with no meaningful ability to opt out."
<sarcasm>Well then they can move somewhere else...</sarcasm>
What you're describing isn't free enterprise, so it's disingenuous to use it as an example as if it's the normal case. I could use North Korea as an example of excessive government, but I'm not because I realize it's not the usual case.
Correct. Government is not free enterprise. To govern a body is to take control of it to a certain extent.
We can quibble about how much control is too much, but that's the topic of this debate, not whether or not the government is controlling. I rather think "free enterprise" leads to horrible things when said "enterprise" begins to affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, and I like that we build systems to manage those large-scale enterprises rather than leaving them up to individual whim. It would be nice if we had more of those systems – say, to stop children from getting sick and dying just because their parents couldn't find work.
The problem with that is that "coerced charity" through taxation is not a contractual obligation one willingly enters into. Did you sign something saying you would pay taxes for government assisted programs? I know I didn't.
Non-coerced charitable donations are more effective because individuals are putting their own dollars to causes they care about, and therefore have an actual interest in seeing their dollars be spent wisely.
By being born in the United States, and as a child of citizens of the United States, I became a citizen of the United States. This entitles me to rights, like the ability to travel anywhere I like across the continent without impediment, as well as to obligations, like paying taxes on my income or military service in the event of war.
The obvious implication of this arrangement is that I rely on the United States every moment of my life, I wouldn't exist in the first place without the United States, and I owe something back to the United States for putting that whole thing together for me. But, if that's just a bridge too far, the United States is reluctantly willing to wash its hands of the whole thing and walk away if I am-- all I have to do is live somewhere else.
I've never understood what makes this concept difficult or complex.
I don't think that is a difficult concept to understand, but the implication of it is that you don't actually have a right to own property. If you own a home, you are merely using your country's land temporarily. If you perform a job and receive wages, those wages are not yours - but instead they belong to the country.
What I believe is that people innately have rights, regardless of what government regime happens to preside over them. The best governments are ones that are set up to protect those innate rights. To protect rights by taking rights away is a concept that doesn't make sense to me.
I'd modify your "people innately have rights" to "there are freedoms which benefit both individuals and the communities they're a part of, which should be treated as innate rights." A bit wordier, but useful in defining what, specifically, entitles us to any particular right.
Personally, I think our right to health is more precious than our right to property or wealth. I'm not opposed to wealth by any means, and entrepreneurialism is a wonderfully fun enterprise, but they are lesser concerns than whether or not people are dying for preventable reasons. Ideally, a government encourages both health and entrepreneurialism by finding ways to pay people searching for more effective healthcare, then by rewarding the people who find it, but that's not what we're debating here.
The answer to "Should the government take my money to pay for somebody else's flu shot, if they cannot afford it?" is a near-unequivocal yes, for me, with the one condition being that I have enough money to afford that flu shot for them. Some people can pay for many more flu shots than I can, and I do believe that it's moral to request that they do so.
Are you universally dualist, or only when it comes to governance? It seems as if we only know these "innate" rights through the protection of government.
Theoretically, the government has an interest in seeing their dollars spent wisely, because if they don't, then people will get angry and vote them out of office. Currently, thanks to a generation of media exploitation, we have an ill-informed public and two parties which don't represent a healthy, balanced set of choices for American citizens – but I don't blame the government for that so much as I blame Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, and the 70s-80s paleoconservatives that spent decades building misinformation into our media.
Very few things in life are willingly entered into. You didn't choose to be born in the place that you did, to the parents that you have, in the race or gender or of the sexual orientation which are yours, in the economic strata that you did. Simply being a user on Hacker News suggests that you've had at least a streak of good luck in your life that's given you the know-how and the comforts that enable you to post on a forum, to know which forum you'd like to post in, to understand the subjects well enough that you've decided you want to participate. We disproved that the heavens rotated around the earth, much less any one specific person, a long time ago; and with it, we began to throw out the notion that any one individual is entitled to rights or to privilege that are not derived from the consensus of her fellow citizens.
This is the basis of all civilization, of every society that's ever been; and progress has been a process that involves making "fellow citizens" as diverse a group as possible. Right now there are arguments over whether we should consider economically disadvantaged people our fellows – while we all would like to say we think they're our equals, we don't seem to think they have the rights to things like flu shots with the rest of us are allowed to take somewhat for granted. And it's not "equal" to tell them they ought to wait around for good people to give them things, because frankly there has never been a society in the world in which good people are so prevalent that there has been enough charitable donation to go around.
Private citizens giving to charity is great. If you have the money for it, donate money; good on Larry Page for this. But people being good doesn't preclude government from being a good idea, and it makes sense to point out, as we laud Page for being such an upstanding citizen of San Francisco, that it's a tragedy how costly even flu shots are, how terrible it is that in the 21st century it's still possible for kids to die of the flu for reasons entirely beyond their control, and that we should all be thinking about how, perhaps, we might make this issue a permanent thing of the past.
yes, there is a contract. its Rousseau's social contract: Each of us places his person and authority under the supreme direction of the general will, and the group receives each individual as an indivisible part of the whole
Prices also often shoot up. Not to mention unintended consequences. Look at the whole birth control situation. A study of a contraceptive mandate in Hawaii back in 2001 ( http://hawaii.gov/dcca/ins/reports/2001_contraceptive_report... ) increased pregnancies as well as costs to all participating in the plan (even those that didn't want the coverage). I don't discount the good intentions of programs like these, I just think it's naive to think that simply throwing more money at these problems is a scalable solution.
It's bad for society to believe a problem is actually being solved by charity that only happens when you feel like it. That just amplifies our problems during recessions, in which those donations start drying up when they're needed most. It's like building a city behind a dam that won't be strong enough to hold back the next flood.
There's no such thing as "free" health care. Not to suggest that the solution to our health care problems is simply through the kindness and charity of those that can afford it.
There are a lot of things you could pay for if you gutted the TSA. Unfortunately, most people (including many very intelligent and educated individuals) continue to believe in security theater, and the companies that profit off of it know how to keep up the propaganda so the people don't realize they're being duped out of millions of dollars in wasted tax revenue.
I disagree. I find it a valid observation of the other side of this situation. And, personally, I did not sign up on HN in order to pat Larry Page on the back.
(However generous and necessary his action was. The other side of this situation is that public society could not manage this basic -- and ultimately, even self-serving, keeping incidents of flu and associated loss of not just well-being but also productivity, for those who view things in dollars and cents -- service for itself.
(See? If it hadn't been for all those ear infections in my infancy, perhaps I could write a coherent sentence. ;-) )
As I reflect upon this, I imagine Page might well be one of the first to agree with this. Perhaps precisely why he made the donation.
So, there too, this story invites the conversation. Why did Page do this? Is there an underlying circumstance perhaps worthy of discussion? I'd say, yes.
P.S. Just to note: I did not vote you down. I'm interested in the conversation this engenders, not in karma/ranking. :-) I don't mean to sound as if I'm bashing you (in case I nonetheless come across this way); I'm interested in perspectives on whether society, through its government, should be capable of and indeed executing such a program for itself.
For my part, I don't think the shots should be forced upon people. (Which has been a problem, at times.) But I think a good, balanced, and truly informative campaign on the topic of vaccinations should be executed, and that for those in hardship, at the least, low or no cost access to vaccinations should be offered. It doesn't just serve them; it serves us all. (Although I'm of somewhat mixed view of the merit of flu vaccinations for the wholesale population, myself.)
It should be noted that charity is very political, so it is not surprising someone would talk about in that context. After all, charity attempts to make up for shortfall in social and political systems and institutions.
