The US is the most expensive nation in which to have a baby - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/16/why-does-it-cost-32093-just-to-give-birth-in-america <comment><USER5> First kid was no cost to us. My wife was on insurance with her employer. Long day, but no complications. I kept waiting for a bill that never came. Couldn't believe we didn't pay anything!

By the time the second kid came around, we were self-insured on the healthcare.gov marketplace. We ended up paying $5000 out of pocket - $2k for the prenatal care and doctors' services, $3k for the delivery and stay at the hospital.

We made a $1500 mistake. My wife had a really fast and normal delivery, but it was so fast that they didn't have time to administer an antibiotic that they otherwise would have. They wanted to monitor her for a day to look for an infection. We said okay, but if I had more closely read my policy I'd have learned that the policy had a $1500/day copay for labor and delivery. We'd have taken our chances and gone home had we known.

Kid three is coming! And this year's marketplace plan says that we're on our own up to the individual deductible of $6950. That's a bronze plan that carries a $950/month premium for 4 people; financial assistance from the government drops that down to $700/month. So we pay $8400/year for the privilege of not paying more than $7000 for an individual ($14,000 for the family) on our plan.

I don't think state-run healthcare is the only solution here (nor is it an inherently bad solution; I'm no libertarian), but I have to think that I'm living in the worst of all worlds here. I'm forced to buy an expensive product that I'm afraid to use, a product that costs more than the roof over my head per month but delivers a fraction of the value. It's expensive because it's violating basic principles of insurance, because the people who made the law are trying to implement universal healthcare in a system that's not built for that idea (at least not in the way it currently exists).

If I lived in a more market-based system there'd be price transparency, presumably a better way to monitor outcomes, and a lot more say in what kind of policy I could get to better accommodate the needs of my family.

Anyways, there are alternatives and means for assistance out there, and we're exploring them. But we like our doctors and our hospital; it's a shame that we have to look elsewhere. Not looking for sympathy, just adding a data point! My takeaway from that article was that maybe we should price out a trip to Spain sometime late in the third trimester :)

<comment><USER6> My wife is a resident physician. She also went through the same experience of delivering a kid.

Here's what I've learned:

* Pricing is not transparent. When the hospital tells you how much the procedure will cost, they are not telling you about the anesthesiologists portion, or the room fee, ect. There will be surprise bills. Why isn't it law that Hospitals provide transparent pricing for non-emergency procedures?

* Doctors are in short supply. This is because becoming a doctor is impossibly hard. Why can't undergraduates enter straight into a medical school program? Doctor's are in the 30's when they complete training and are already halfway toward the retirement age

* If things go badly during the delivery, you will be glad you are at a well equipped Hospital. A $5000 bill is a small price to pay to ensure the baby does not arrive brain damaged.

<comment><USER7> _Doctors are in short supply. This is because becoming a doctor is impossibly hard_

That's an entirely artificial problem created by the AMA (or BMA in the UK) to keep wages high. What if everyone who had the academic ability could train, rather than having to compete for a restricted number of slots? It's how every other discipline does it (they defer competing for places until the job market).

<comment><USER8> This is a huge problem. The limiting factor appears to be the number of residency spots, not the number of accepted medical school students. We should take some of the billions our Federal government spends and increase the number of residency spots and increase funding for tuition reimbursement for practicing in underserved areas.

<comment><USER9> I can't personally speak to the accuracy of the linked claim below, but it suggests that the coverage of residency spots is controlled by a physician led advisory board called RUC that intentionally limits the reimbursement so as to control wages.

[http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/its-doctors- wh...](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/its-doctors-who-control- number-doctors-america-not-government/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In India, there are small boutique hospitals that solve this very problem (e.g. [https://www.cloudninecare.com/;](https://www.cloudninecare.com/;) [https://www.motherhoodindia.com/;](https://www.motherhoodindia.com/;) [http://ovumhospitals.com/](http://ovumhospitals.com/) and hundreds more in every city). I have always been so surprised by how "broken" maternity is in the U.S. and just how overtly "scammy" some of the things are e.g. if one needed breast-pumps, there is a 'company representative' that would deliver it to your hospital room and you get charged separately - by the company - <USER2> nurses get a kick-back; There is a nexus of private practitioners roaming the hospital wards helping mom's with early care - most of them looking for 'repeat business', after one is discharged. This is from experience in San Francisco. Not to mention the 'baby-product-industrial-complex' where one is convinced that highly special, safe and pink or blue colored equipment is needed for baby care. So there is a LOT of money made in the U.S. from every birth by a vast nexus of companies. Just the product choices one is forced to make drives millions of panicked google searches a year (with 'listicle- focused-SEO-hog-blogs' feeding off of this) -- just to search for the "right" equipment. Why can't just one company consolidate this -- and offer a one- stop-solution? Naked Capitalism is on its full-show during the birth process in America. It is indeed very strange.

Finland has 'baby boxes' delivered by the govt: [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22751415](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22751415)

Sweden has a govt sponsored program for end-to-end support for new parents: [https://sweden.se/society/10-things-that-make-sweden- family-...](https://sweden.se/society/10-things-that-make-sweden-family- friendly/)

The reason for this comment is that HN has a 'startup' bent to it, so I hope some entrepreneur just Warby-Parkers (is it a verb?) the baby birth process. There is definitely room for massive simplification. Make each decision simple -- that alone is a giant opportunity.

<comment><USER11> > Finland has 'baby boxes'

Interestingly, Scotland now has 'baby boxes' too [0] - but not the rest of the UK, it is an initiative by the devolved Scottish government only it seems.

0\. [https://www.mygov.scot/baby-box/](https://www.mygov.scot/baby-box/)

<comment><USER12> I moved from Scotland to Finland, with my Finnish wife, and I admit I cried when I unpacked our baby-box:

[https://imgur.com/a/I0NYI](https://imgur.com/a/I0NYI)

The box itself is great, but the reason that Finnish mortality rate for babies fell so sharply after the box was introduced was because to qualify for one you had to visit a doctor early in your pregnancy.

Having early contact with healthcare, when pregnant, means you're more likely to do well. The doctors/nurses/midwifes/assistants can frown at you, tell you to eat your vitamins, stop smoking/drinking, etc.

For what it is worth healthcare is not free in Finland, but we paid about €300 for mother, father, and baby to stay in a private room for 3-5 days. (Just over a year ago, I can no longer remember that period. I just remember in the 3-5 days I drank a full bottle of whisky, and smoked a cigar in the car-park, in subzero temperatures. Finland, remember?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A free-standing birth center, without a financial incentive to divert you into an associated hospital, could run you $700 out of $3000. (you pay $700, insurance pays $2300) Some of these places are very nice, feeling far less like a prison or mental institution than a hospital. I know one where the laboring mother can open the door to her room, then step out on to a patio that is separated from the street only by some large bushes. There is no feeling that the place is ready to lock you in and call social workers over a bit of dark humor.

A midwife at home would be perhaps $1000 out of $5000. (you pay $1000, insurance pays $4000) Residents of California may have trouble finding this; the obstetricians got their competition mostly outlawed.

Doing things by yourself is of course free. I did that with twins and with a 10-pound (4.5 kg) kid.

With all of the above, you are far less likely to be subjected to time pressures that will lead to drugs and ultimately to major surgery. Surgery is not just an expense; it is a hazard to both mother and babies because it impairs the ability to maintain and deliver future pregnancies. Surgery rates in the USA are improperly high because of how an uneducated jury is thought to respond; death and injury from surgery ("at least they tried everything") looks better than death and injury from non-action.

Except for the do-it-yourself option, there is emergency equipment. People greatly overestimate the chance of having a fast-developing problem, and they overestimate the ability of a standard hospital to respond effectively. If you truly need surgery, the time to travel for it can overlap nicely with the time it takes a hospital to prepare.

<comment><USER14> > Doing things by yourself is of course free. I did that with twins and with a > 10-pound (4.5 kg) kid.

Do not attempt this at home...

Sure, 95% of the time you'll be fine and have no complications (for mom or baby), but do you really want to risk it for that 5%?

I suspect this will be one of those trends that seems very appealing until we get a few headlines of home births gone wrong. Especially dangerous if it is your first baby, or if you have other risk factors.

<comment><USER15> The idea that at home birth is so much more dangerous is controversial. Look at this very lengthy review: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399594/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399594/) (search for death and mortality to find the interesting sections).

<comment><USER16> My son had cord wrapped around neck and SO glad I was around people who knew what they were doing with medical support.

It might be only a few % different but if its your few % you might come to feel differently in the end.

I suspect homebirth statistics in the west suffer heavily from selection bias since sensible antenatal care will direct complicated births to hospitals. They do mention this in the intro to the study you linked - homebirths in western countries tend to be experienced mothers from advantaged backgrounds having second or further children.

<comment><USER15> Cord wrapped around the neck is quite common actually, the occurence is about 1 in 3 babies. It's normally nothing to be concerned about, as blood flow is not hindered, even if it's wrapped around twice. This would be no reason to not give birth at home.

Misconceptions or fears like this make people totally dependent on hospitals, which is IMO a shame - it hinders making a well informed decision (weigh actual risks vs benefits).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well for starters...

[https://i1.wp.com/investingdoc.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/0...](https://i1.wp.com/investingdoc.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/admin-jobs.jpg)

<comment><USER18> What do these administrators do (i.e. what's their value)? Are they like physicians with a leading/management role?

<comment><USER19> They apply "MBA 101" to the system, best summarized as "extracting more money with better care as a distant second".

Was chatting with the doc during our second birth, the admins had just pulled a bait and switch on the practitioners. Instead of better equipment and surgery rooms, they were getting a few hundred more beds. Beds are easy to bill for. Surgery and actual care are way less profitable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When my son was born, I paid $5K to a birthing center in Boise, a couple of blocks from the hospital.

We visited frequently over the 9 months, and each time stayed for about 4-5 days in a birthing room with a hot tub. Also true after my son was born. And then for a few return visits for checkups. And then for a return visit just to visit Boise and hang-out and chill with other parents, expecting parents, etc.

$5K, all inclusive. Just like Club Med (been to the one in Cancun... lovely vacation spot).

I had insurance... if anything would've happened, an ambulance would've picked us up and taken us to the hospital and then insurance coverage would've kicked in.

<comment><USER21> Yes - I've had five kids. The sum total cost was less than the claim in the title of this article.

<comment><USER22> Everyone's experience varies. Our first kid cost [our insurance] $100k - <USER3> spent 18 days in the NICU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there _any_ medical procedure/medicine for which the US is _not_ the most expensive nation (or among the most expensive)?

<comment><USER24> Doesn't seem like a very good comparison considering it's "free" in most other countries.

<comment><USER25> It'd still be worthwhile to know how much the government pays in costs in those countries.

<comment><USER26> The US as a whole pays about 3 times as much per person than most Western European countries, and over twice as much as the most expenesive ones.

<comment><USER27> What? We don't even pay twice as much as most countries, although our cost curve is rising.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita?wprov=sfla1)

<comment><USER25> Great source. I enjoyed looking at that. Socialized health care is not the silver bullet in terms of cost reduction. No shock there though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So a hospital can theoretically have everything out of network and the patient will risk financial ruin just by using hospitals in America.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's well beyond theoretical. The system is total nonsense.

I think a sane first step would be a N-month statute of limitations on bills. Anything you're going to be billed for should be sent within N-months. I'm not saying that it _should_ take that long. I'm saying right now there's no limit whatsoever. You could receive a bill for some itemized sub portion (lab work, specialist, a different doctor, etc) a year after a hospital visit and you have no clue what it's for.

<comment><USER29> And this happened to me. Got a call from a collection agency claiming I owed them money a year after the birth. I called the hospital and got a written confirmation that they had no record of an unpaid or even late bill. I called my insurance and confirmed they had never received a bill for the amount claimed. Upon getting details from the debt collector (later than required by law), I saw a doctor's name. So I went to the hospital, and they had no record of a doctor by that name ever working for them.

The bill turned out to be legitimate, in that the doctor was a "traveling anesthesiologist" and was never an employee of the hospital. And they billed separately, and were never given my insurance information. The whole case ended up relying on my wife's signature on a long legal form that she signed while she was dilated to an 8. All the contact information (address, phone, company name) on the documentation led to people who could not confirm any details on the bill. The hospital told me that they have had a lot of reports of doctors who do their own billing not sending bills for months because they're not very organized.

Eventually the anesthesiologist billed it to my insurance correctly and I paid 10% of it. I later found out I could sue the debt collector for not providing details fast enough, but the statute of limitations on their violation had expired.

<comment><USER30> _I later found out I could sue the debt collector for not providing details fast enough, but the statute of limitations on their violation had expired._

What was the statute of limitations in this case?

<comment><USER29> 1 year. It was also a 1 year limit on when they could collect the bill if it wasn't billed to my insurance. Not sure if that would've counted, since the hospital had my insurance and technically I didn't give it directly to the independent doctor, but the only reason they billed my insurance days before it hit a year is because I was crazy persistent and proactive about getting to the bottom of this. Next time I'll let more of the burden of proof remain on them longer.

This is all under Colorado law, btw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm not arguing it's cheaper to give birth in America, but it doesn't seem like this article makes fair comparisons. What an insurance company or hospital charges includes some amount of mark-up, so is more than just the "cost." Likewise, in countries with socialized medicine, the hospital might charge the patient nothing, but it _cost_ someone something (people's time, depreciation on equipment, electricity, and lots of other things). Adjusting for these probably doesn't make everything come out the same, but it would make the claims less sensational.

</comment><comment><USER32> Healthcare here is a joke. No clear pricing, no clarity on what is or isn't actually covered, mega bills that get delivered a year late then you then have to argue over.

The only way to not go bankrupt is to not get sick, ever.

<comment><USER33> It's often not even clear who you will be paying much less how much it will cost.

<comment><USER34> Isn't this the truth. I had a test done and got bills from _3 different people_ , at _3 different times_ , separated by a couple of months. Some submitted to insurance, others didn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I agree that our healthcare system is messed up but the insurance company paid for 95% of her bill. Seems like she got her money's worth from the insurance company.

<comment><USER36> Why don't insurance companies lead the change towards transparent pricing?

<comment><USER37> Because their profits are limited as a percentage of revenue (aka "they must spend x% of their revenue on patient care"), and thus there's a huge incentive for prices to go up across the board to increase their dollar amounts that don't have to be spent on patient care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> When we had our daughter I was annoyed that I ended up paying about £50 for parking for the week that recovery from the cesarian took. Looking back I guess that was a bit short sighted!

<comment><USER39> Hospital parking has been free in Scotland since 2008, so just the cost of fuel for getting to/from the hospital!

<comment><USER40> I thought the NHS reimbursed travel too?

<comment><USER39> I haven't heard of that. If true, I guess it's only in very particular situations.

<comment><USER40> Checked, and yes, it's for people on benefits effectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> At the company I work for, our previous insurer doubled our premiums, so we switched. It went from so-so to terrible.

My daughter cut her hand and needed stitches; I took her to the ER; their surgeon was booked, so they sent me to a different one. I got a $160k bill for an "elective surgery."

It took a couple of phone calls to get the point across that stitches for a hand bleeding through 3 dressings is not elective. 6 months later, the surgeon still has not gotten paid (I know this because sometimes get copied on the "request for extra information" that is sent out by the company).

Also I get about 3 letters from the insurance company for every visit that involves insurance (PT after the hand injury was weekly, so this was a lot). I asked if I could get those electronically, and apparently my plan doesn't qualify for paperless...

<comment><USER39> $160k?! Was this seriously just for stitches? How come an actual surgeon was doing something as simple as stiching?

<comment><USER41> A tendon needed reattaching too; that's why they needed an actual surgeon (and the ones at the ER were booked).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> My wife ended up w/ an unplanned C section to deliver our daughter in 2013 in Dayton, Ohio. Both mom and daughter had reasons for two extra days in the hospital. The bill to my wife's insurance company was just under $60,000 for her portion. My daughter's portion was out-of-pocket (because she was on my insurance) and was around $12,000 after the hospital's "cash discount".

A lot of factors contributed to our decision not to have any more children, but the cost of maternity care, birth, and follow-up medical care figured-in prominently. My wife was leaving her job after the birth and everyone was going on my insurance (self-employed, have bought my own insurance since 2004). Had the costs been less I'm not sure we would have opted to have any more, but it would have changed the calculus.

<comment><USER43> Our insurance had excellent coverage, but I remember being excited when I payed a bill for my wife, and thought that we were good, since we hit the $3,000 max out of pocket per person. And then bills started arriving in my Son's name.. So another $3k..

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It cost us $2000+ for the hospital to help my wife deliver our dead baby. The shitty part is that it would have been free under our insurance if the baby were alive. Yay insurance...

<comment><USER45> Wow, that's a terrible emergent cruelty from a complex labyrinth of years of backroom negotiations. I'm sorry for your loss and that you had to pay for it like that monetarily as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Regarding sweden

We had premature twins and it cost us zero. The taxes are sky high but I feel ok that others get ot free also since I got it

<comment><USER47> I think there are two sides to this. You paid nothing because you were subsidized by others. I can definitely see the other point of view from folks who do not have children and/or do not want children.

Here in the US, I don't particularly want to pay for the masses of folks who refuse to use contraceptives and are up to 4+ children already. There are already way too many people here (and on Earth in general). On the other hand, people should be entitled to free healthcare to a MUCH larger extend than we currently have here. There's a big difference between having a child and you catching the flu, breaking a bone, or getting cancer. The environmental and social impact of having a kid is much larger, and I can see how some folks don't want to subsidize this.

<comment><USER48> > You paid nothing because you were subsidized by others.

This is the story of civilization. You've been around for a blip and yet the Internet, flight, mobile phones, vaccines, civil rights, central heating etc. are all available to you.

You didn't contribute to any of that and yet you're the benefactor. For society to flourish it's necessary - within reason - to think beyond your own individual interests, and consider what type of society you want to live in and leave behind.

One in which people are financially ruined if they fall or give birth is surely not the best we can do.

<comment><USER49> Excellent post. Sums up everything why I agree with this governmental model. Will save this comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Interesting, lets look at a link from the article:

<i> Results—In 2010, the U.S. infant mortality rate was 6.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, and the United States ranked 26th in infant mortality among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Devel opment countries. After excluding births at less than 24 weeks of gestation to ensure international comparability, the U.S. infant mortality rate was 4.2, still higher than for most European countries and about twice the rates for Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. U.S. infant mortality rates for very preterm infants (24–31 weeks of gestation) compared favorably with most European rates. However, the U.S. mortality rate for infants at 32–36 weeks was second-highest, and the rate for infants at 37 weeks of gestation or more was highest, among the countries studied. About 39% of the United States' higher infant mortality rate when compared with that of Sweden was due to a higher percentage of preterm births, while 47% was due to a higher infant mortality rate at 37 weeks of gestation or more. If the United States could reduce these two factors to Sweden's levels, the U.S. infant mortality rate would fall by 43%, with nearly 7,300 infant deaths averted annually. <i>

How much does treating babies with low-birth weight add to the average cost?

</comment><comment><USER50> For some reason the article didn't mention the cost of malpractice insurance. I wonder why? My cousin, a doctor in Pennsylvania, said at one point, the insurance was getting so expensive, it was driving obstetricians from the state.

</comment><comment><USER51> Yup- Wanted to burn off some blackheads and a US skin specialist charged $175 to take off 1 using a Ultrasonic machine, went to Mexico and took off 20 for $5 using the same machine.

<comment><USER52> How did you find & vet the provider in Mexico?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I've long suspected that a driver of the cost of medical care in America is the middle-people. Everyone who wants to take a cut, and tack on a fee, and increase profits. From the drug maker to the bandaid company. There was a really fascinating article here recently on doctors who only take cash, and I think it really hits to the idea that we're being taken for a ride from a lot of these companies, hospitals, insurers, etc.

</comment><comment><USER54> I don't recall what the itemized bill was before insurance took care of it, but with health insurance, each of my kids actual cost to me was $100 out of pocket. In the US.

I'm sure the quoted price before insurance was probably ridiculous, though.

<comment><USER55> No one knows how much healthcare costs in the United States. Not the insurance companies. Not the hospitals. Not the doctors. No one. The prices vary widely across providers, and insurance companies. I was reading a few years ago (alas, I can't find the link, but I think it was in the LA Times. KQED was also working on this recently.[1]) where the author tried shopping around and found where same provider would come up with different itemized breakdowns depending on the insurer. It came down to the provider and the insurer negotiated prices. Say the insurer provider agrees that a procedure costs $1000, but says an x-rays can only cost $500, so the doctor fee is $500. Another insurer says treatments can cost $800, and x-rays can only cost $!00, so suddenly the doctor fee is $700. What's the true price of anything?

Under America's about the only thing you can tell is that total costs are much higher than the rest of the world, and outcomes are actually slightly worse than the rest of the OECD countries.[0]

[0] [http://beta.latimes.com/nation/la-na-healthcare- comparison-2...](http://beta.latimes.com/nation/la-na-healthcare- comparison-20170715-htmlstory.html)

[1] [https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2014/11/17/3647197...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2014/11/17/364719763/in-california-that-mri-will-cost-you-255-or-6-221)

<comment><USER34> It shocks me that this isn't criminal. I can't think of any other good/service where we accept this sort of thing. It also really exposes the extreme arbitrary nature of healthcare pricing.

<comment><USER55> The thing is, you could figure out how much an x-ray costs. You just have amortize the cost of the machine, consumables, technicians, and radiologists over the number of images taken. The data is sitting there at every hospital, just spread out across departments. The thing is, gathering that data and calculating these numbers requires a nontrivial amount of effort, and if all you care about is if your bottom is going up or down, then what's the point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It doesn't. We paid <$4K when my daughter was born for a midwife.

The hospital wanted $5K before even seeing my wife _just to schedule an appointment_. All because she is "advanced maternal age" (whatever that means).

<comment><USER57> It means she would be at least 35 when delivering, but I agree; 5k upfront isn't justified by that.

<comment><USER56> Well I get the age bit but haven't been told why exactly things are different. Especially if this is not your first child.

<comment><USER58> Increasing age increases complications.

Old papers, but just the first that came up during a google scholar search.

[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199510123331501#t=a...](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199510123331501#t=article)

[https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/17/6/1649/2919231](https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/17/6/1649/2919231)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I had seen [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ra3w4/the...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7ra3w4/the_cost_of_our_babys_birth_csection_in_the_us_oc/) this on reddit a couple of days ago. Guy calculated the all the cost.

</comment><comment><USER7> Having a baby _should_ be expensive. There are nearly 8Bn people in the world; "making more people" is not a problem that the human race has. The problems we do have with pollution, climate change, resource depletion, extinction of other species, food and water supplies are entirely caused by there being too many of us competing for too little of _everything else_. This is especially the case in the US where individuals are extremely high-impact on the environment in terms of natural resources consumed and pollution generated. Those externalities have a real cost attached, that isn't reflected in the current price, which would be much much higher if parents had to pay their child's say CO2 impact up front.

<comment><USER60> > Having a baby should be expensive (...) This is especially the case in the > US where individuals are extremely high-impact on the environment in terms > of natural resources consumed and pollution generated.

So those who benefit the most from resource depletion (i.e. those who can afford the hypothetical Baby Tax) would be free to have as many babies as they want, while the poor, already impeded in most activities and burdened by the cost of livinng, would make a sacrifice.

Sorry if my reading is too harsh.

<comment><USER61> > So those who benefit the most from resource depletion (i.e. those who can > afford the hypothetical Baby Tax) would be free to have as many babies as > they want, while the poor, already impeded in most activities and burdened > by the cost of livinng, would make a sacrifice.

Yes. Because those population strata, not only in the US but across the world, produce the bulk of population with no education, high ecological impact, and scarred by social depravation. It doesn't advance humanity toward an 22nd century-appropriate standard of living to raise a vast population of people who are to become even more utterly worthless in the face of automation and extreme competition even among the elite of the 1st world.

It is beyond me how humanists can support unlimited population growth/"self expression of the individual/right to give birth" when that populuation growth is going to drive countries and continents toward a demographic and social catastrophe. Then again, my personal opinion is we are already on track and about to arrive there on schedule, so what gives.

<comment><USER62> You're barking at a wrong tree here. Absolute absolute majority of children in poverty and without access to education are born outside the USA. You solve nothing other than being explicitly mean to (I assume) your compatriots. See if it gets you anywhere in the long run.

Let me repeat it for you: you've got two arguments and they're in major conflict. You can't use both and neither one holds water sole.

<comment><USER61> > Absolute absolute majority of children in poverty and without access to > education are born outside the USA.

That's a fact. Just that doesn't mean that the USA would do better now or in the future with more poor people giving birth to more disadvantaged children inside its own borders. Also, I wasn't explicitly limiting my argument to the United States on purpose.

> You solve nothing other than being explicitly mean to (I assume) your > compatriots.

[I'm not American.] All I'm advocating is a realistic and pragmatic approach to demographic management. The goal should be to ameliorate life for any given compatriot in the long run. Though of course in the long run, the population of the present will be dead.

<comment><USER62> > with more poor people giving birth to more disadvantaged children

Maybe they wouldn't be poor if not for excessive charges in some areas? How is that for an idea?

Many people who are considered "poor" in the USA, would be considered "totally ok, just in slightly disadvantaged line of work" in less polarizing locales. That after a safety net that won't put $10k worth of charges on you after hospital visit.

There are poor and marginal, who should probably be incentivized to avoid children - and then there's working poor, who should have their condition fixed. That's all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> It boggles my mind, that a country with the most billionaires still has not addressed gun laws and universal healthcare.

<comment><USER64> Sure the US has addressed gun laws. It has maintained that firearm ownership is an individual right and the laws reflect that.

<comment><USER63> I see you ran with a different notion of what I meant by "addressed".

I'm certain victims of mass shootings will beg to differ. Individuals also have a right to not be deceased or live in fear of mass shooters whom you are right, has been addressed with individual right to carry.

Having laws that favor one side heavily is not a standard for 'addressed'. Take a look at Australia, that is proper 'addressing' the issue.

<comment><USER64> My reply is your position on what "addressed" means is no more correct than mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Living in France, these comments are all so sad :(

</comment><comment><USER66> In a negative connotation: because insurance companies and hospital owners are taking you for a ride and politicians sit back, sipping their whiskeys and enjoy their lobbying. And if anyone DARES to make such comparisons to Sweden or Finland, some republican will start yelling "down with socialism!!!". One day USA's citizens will "have enough of this" and perhaps do something about this, but this day is anything but close.

<comment><USER67> Quebec, Canada == free + 1 year maternity leave at 75% of your salary + a lot $$ by both Quebec province and federal governments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who pays the 75% salary when you're not working? Does it come from the company you were employed at, the government, or some combo?

<comment><USER68> You do, through taxes, but would you rather pay lower taxes for fewer benefits and more aircraft carriers in the US, or more taxes for huge benefits like maternity leave and education?

<comment><AUTHOR> Speaking selfishly, I can't get pregnant and primary education is primarily funded by local property taxes so I'm for the lower overall taxes.

<comment><USER69> That's the crux of the problem. If you speak selfishly without looking at the big picture, you can't make a rational decision at scale.

<comment><AUTHOR> The decisions are still rational, we're just optimizing a different variable. In my view the majority of the money I give the government gets squandered and I have no realistic expectation of getting back anything close to what I've contributed to social security.

By that standard if someone suggests raising taxes further to increase the amount of money in the equation I'd be firmly against it. The problem with our government is that it doesn't collect enough taxes, it's that it doesn't spend the money it collects wisely.

We're getting off topic from the original article though. If this was a conversation about something like a single payer system it'd be apt (and I'd be for it as well!) but (chronically underfunded) pensions are an entirely separate topic.

<comment><USER70> I'd think most people would realize that having a society raised by loving, caring, well-adapted parents would pay off in the long run. I certainly think it would be in my best interest to have my future fellow peers raised well.

Now, maybe you REALLY want to stare into the void and declare that the decisions made now won't affect your life, won't change your peers. I guess that's your right, but that's not how my societal calculus functions. To me, this is a bargain for maintaining an upright, well functioning, positive society.

<comment><AUTHOR> So why stop at 75% for maternity leave? Why not 100%? Or even 200% of your original salary? It's for families and kids right? Why not double subsidize it?

You claim it's a bargain. At what tax rate is it a bargain? 5% increased tax rate? 10%? 25%? 50%?

Specifics matter. Make your case with an actual proposal. Claiming I'm heartless because I don't want others to spend my money is hardly an argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Capitalism.

<comment><USER72> This isn't capitalism. If it was capitalism, somebody would come along and offer to let you give birth in their buildings for less than $32k.

I'm not sure what _is_ going on here, but it isn't capitalism.

<comment><USER73> It's Capitalism applied to something that doesn't have a market, shouldn't have a market, and who's participants are unable to properly participate in it in any way that resembles a market.

<comment><USER74> The health sector is one of the most regulated sectors in the US. It has nothing to do with free market capitalism.

<comment><USER73> And yet for profit entities proliferate it at every level, and the constant drumbeat of people against nationalization is for people to be "smart" consumers of healthcare, as if you can make an informed market-based decision about which provider to use while in the back of a damn ambulance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I wonder if Medicaid dropping coverage for births would increase the overall acceptance of contraceptive use among the poor.

<comment><USER76> Flamebait is not welcome here; please don't post it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> this trope about how much things cost in the US vs other countries never dies. Things are not free in Spain, they are paid for by heavy taxation, which then results in a massive unemployment rate of 17% AND a lower birth rate than US.

<comment><USER40> So cherrypick any other country with a working universal healthcare system and lower unemployment rate. You can almost pick any tax rate too, and there's a country with that.

<comment><USER77> So, why don't you do if then? Which country has lower unemployment rate and higher birth rate than US where taxation is low ? Can you name one ? I love the downvotes. I make a factual statement that Spain, which is referenced in the article, has higher tax burden, a 17% unemployment rate and a lower birth rate than US and they freak out.

<comment><USER40> Almost all other modern democracies (e.g OECD) have universal healthcare. Almost all have lower unemployment rates than Spain (if not all).

Taxation _varies_. Was my point. Those that have the healthcare as a public insurance on the side of taxes can have low taxes. Those with tax funded single payer obviously have higher taxes.

My example of choice of low-ish taxes, high birth rate and universal healthcare would be Ireland. There are others.

<comment><USER77> You are missing the point. Yes, countries have lots of benefits, what I am having issue with is the claim those benefits are cheaper. No, they are paid for in different ways.

There aren't any others. US has a lower tax burden than almost all OECD countries except for Ireland.

[http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us- taxes...](http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxes- compare-internationally)

Technically, Ireland fails my test because it has a higher unemployment rate than US. Safe to say, Ireland is an exception due to being probably most catholic country in the western world, which keeps birth rate high

My specific test is, find me a developed country with lower unemployment rate, lower taxes and higher birth rate than US. There isn't one. And that's how those benefits are paid for

<comment><USER40> Whether single payer or other universal systems are "cheaper" is one question. The US system isn't the only way of having a private system, and there are reasons for it being expensive other than it being market based (monopolies, legal reasons etc). While it's hard to say _why_ US healthcare is more expensive, it's at least pretty easy to say that other systems aren't like the US, and are cheaper. They are paid for in different ways (e.g taxes, fees,...), correct. And those costs are lower. Naturally countries with tax funded healthcare have higher taxes. An apples-to-apples comparison is of course between tax+healthcare in both countries.

Third: unemployment rate. This is also locally dependent on what full employment is, which depends on, for example, unemployment benefits etc. 6% unemployment in Sweden is pretty good, but would be terrible in the US. So percentages are _not_ directly comparable. (For example 6% in Ireland is comparably lower unemployment than the current 4% in the US in a fair comparison as Ireland's full employment rate is 5% - They are at full+1%)

As such, finding countries which have lower taxes despite including healthcare and lower unemployment despite perhaps having 80% unemployment benefits isn't just impossible it's a pretty useless comparison to begin with.

To make a fair comparison you have to correct for local factors: taxes excluding healthcare, and unemployment as difference from full employment (to begin with).

<comment><USER77> it's not a useless comparison. In aggregate, US has one of the lowest tax burdens in OECD. So, in countries where you have lots of benefits, those benefits are paid for with higher taxes !!! so, to say, that in aggregate those benefits cost less is simply inaccurate. You have to correctly account for the costs.

<comment><USER40> Yes. And healthcare costs are lower in nearly every way you measure: individual procedures, cost per individual per year etc. That Americans (and their employers) pay more than others pay for healthcare through taxes isn't just widely known it's also by a pretty wide margin. So yes benefits are paid for by taxes. And the question is: does that make it cheaper?

<comment><USER77> cost per individual per year is lower in other OECD countries because its subsidized through heavy taxation. So, it's not really lower, it's just shifted into a different bucket for accounting purposes. But it didn't go anywhere - that's the point. You can see it easily by the fact that taxation as % of GDP is much higher than in the US. Where does that extra money go? Subsidizing healthcare and other benefits

<comment><USER40> No. That's _not_ what I'm talking about. If you think _thats_ what people mean when they say "healthcare is cheaper in countries with single payer" then no wonder you don't seem to find it attractive.

The cost of providing healthcare (total) is lower in all those countries. That is, a country might use $10k per individual per year for healthcare, financed by taxes. Meanwhile the average for a US individual (paid with insurance) is twice that (those numbers were made up but you get the point).

As you are saying, there is nothing magic about this. Having a _single_ insurance pool and putting the premium on the tax bill doesn't change much - it's just accounting. And obviously it will make taxes look higher. But if you pay $1000 per month in taxes and $1000 to healthcare, or $2000 in taxes, it's just the same thing with a different name.

The difference is this: you could pay $1500 in taxes (with healthcare costing 500 when single payer instead of 1000 via private insurance) And _then_ it's a very real difference. Again, numbers made up for illustrative purposes. A new US system would likely look like Canadas, so should have similar costs.

Oh - a fun fact: the US spends more _public_ money on healthcare than some OECD countries with universal healthcare (e.g Sweden)! [http://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-spends-public-money- heal...](http://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-spends-public-money-healthcare- sweden-canada/)

<comment><USER77> No, you don't understand. The actual, economic cost of providing healthcare in those countries isn't lower. It looks lower from accounting point of view because of various hidden subsidies. How do we know this? It's very simple - they have to have a significantly higher overall burden of taxation. Where does that money go ?

<comment><USER40> I don't know why I'm arguing in circles here.

In many of those countries the healthcare is _completely_ tax funded. You don't have to ask people what they pay for healthcare, it's known from the tax budget.

So these aren't somehow made up numbers. We know exactly how much money the Swedish government uses to provide healthcare for each Swede. It's ALL tax money.

So we can compare that number to what an average American pays for healthcare. And when doing that we have a fair comparison of the cost of healthcare.

Tax burden etc does NOT change this comparison. It's exactly what this comparison IS. One persons TAXES vs another persons insurance policy + out of pocket expenses for healthcare.

Please don't reply now with "but taxes are higher so it just looks cheaper!" - if it didn't sink in now there is nothing more I can do to explain it.

[https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health- spending.htm](https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm)

<comment><USER77> You still don't understand. The total level of benefits and taxation is relevant. Healthcare doesn't exist in isolation. For example, you can pay doctors a lot less because they go to medical school for free and don't have malpractice insurance at the same level and also because their retirement is taken care of by the state. You can pay hospital administrators less and on and on. This lowers the accounting cost of healthcare - but not economic cost. Somebody paid taxes to send that doctor to medical school for free

This high overall taxation enables subsidies which are then used to make it look like healthcare costs, when looked at in isolation, appear lower.

Empirically, we can see this: very few developed ountries are able to provide lower healthcare costs than US while also having a lower overall taxation burden.

<comment><USER40> Oh. You are thinking of _secondary_ effects of high-tax societies, such as flatter wage structures influencing (production) costs of healthcare. Yes - <USER4> absolutely agree that is a factor, and I genuinely believe that if the US wants to see the _full_ economic benefits of single payer they must _also_ make higher education cheaper, reform the malpractice legal frameworks, and so on. The fact that I tax-pay my doctors MD likely makes less of my tax money go to healthcare. Agree.

The UK does have a good single payer system and not (entirely) free higher education, so they naturally have more wage inequality (for other reasons as well including much weaker labor unions and labor laws) and should be a better comparison than e.g Scandinavian countries which has flat wages and tax-funded everything. Canada seems similar (tuition there seems to be around 50% subsidized?)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the difference between Libertarianism and Fascism - <AUTHOR> With Peter Thiel ascending to the TRump Cabinet, his extremely worrying ideas about women's and minority rights are extremely worrying:
https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian
What is up with this?
Best I can tell, Libertarianism is a kind of an explanation of why there are poor people, and how not to feel bad about it.  I may be wrong! <comment><USER4> Libertarianism and fascism are so far apart that I'm not sure if this question is just trolling, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Libertarianism generally supports the idea of minimal government intervention in people's lives. This means both avoiding restrictions on what people are allowed to do (e.g. legalize drugs, oppose religiously-driven laws that restrict the freedom of gay and trans people), and also avoiding governmental efforts to actively assist people (e.g. no social security or Medicare). Most libertarians would like to see a small, weak government that just does the minimum required to ensure that one person's freedom isn't impinging on another person's freedom. They typically oppose military intervention - <USER2> oppose the idea of a standing military at all - and generally advocate for open boarders.

Fascism on the other hand generally advocates for a very strong government that aggressiveky restricts individual freedom in the hope of achieving the goal of social and cultural stasis, or national military power. Fascists typically believe that individuals should submit to the will of the state (e.g. dramatically limiting free speech, banning "deviant" lifestyles). They tend to support aggressive military actions and closed borders.

Libertarians believe personal freedom is an end in itself. Fascists seek security and safety for their immediate society and tend to not care much about personal freedom. Whereas libertarians tend to value every individual, fascists would argue that any given set of individuals should be sacrificed if it benefits the state.

As with any political identity though, there are a wide range of beliefs - <USER3> people - who have been identified with these two labels. So, YMMV.

<comment><USER5> Notice that both systems (and other systems too) are more mechanisms to archive undefined goals than goal setting.

In a libertarian society, free individuals could still build walls around the borders of their properties and hire armed guard to shoot at anybody not of their colors trying to cross it.

In a fascist society, the bosses could still force the people to accept submerging immigration from another continent, and brainwash the indigenous people to abort and use contraceptives, so that it is eventually exterminated.

ie. Libertarianism, Fascism, Communism, Capitalism, Republic, Monarchy, etc, don't matter much, to the persons who have the power to decide the policy and goals. The question is who decides, and what policy and goals they decide.

<comment><USER6> You are giving somewhat of an _operational definition_ which I think comes closer to the truth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Libertarianism is a flag of convenience.

Your question is what's the difference between a Libertarian and a Fascist. I've asked self identifying Libertarians what is the difference between a Libertarian and a conservative and what I got was a complaint about liberals. They occasionally have a wacky opinion like being for drug legalization and very occasionally being anti death penalty. But really, I can't tell them apart from garden variety conservatives.

A buddy of mine is an Ayn Rand reading Ronulan. Birther. Dude, you're not a Libertarian. You're a Fakebertarian.</comment>


NSA Phone Snooping Cannot Be Challenged in Court, Feds Say - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/spygate-snooping-standing/ <comment><USER3> It should be noted that their position on standing comes straight from _Clapper v. Amnesty International, No. 11-1025_ which the Supreme Court decided in the government's favor this year.

The decision is that likely targets of surveillance who cannot prove that they were ACTUALLY surveilled have no standing to file a court case where they could issue subpoenas to the government which could prove whether they were. In short it is a catch-22. You can't sue about being unconstitutionally searched unless you can prove it happened. But you can't prove it happened without suing.

And the Supreme Court thinks that this is acceptable.

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's acceptable either, but really it's an impossible question from either direction.

Consider the alternative ruling; all covert surveillance at all including (including legitimate, warranted intelligence collection) would become impossible. Classification itself would only be a matter of nobody bothering to ask.

Of course, such total transparency is a viable philosophical viewpoint, but unfortunately it's not really on the table in any of the current discussions.

<comment><USER5> "Of course, such total transparency is a viable philosophical viewpoint, but unfortunately it's not really on the table in any of the current discussions."

That speaks more to the current political environment than to the validity of transparency or secrecy. We should be very concerned that we have gotten to the point where surveillance and intelligence collection are considered to be more important than the ability of the people to hold the government accountable for its actions via the court system.

<comment><USER6> Yes. HN, please keep the discussion going strong. So glad to see the NSA's surveillance hasn't died off the front page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _The Obama administration for the first time responded to a Spygate lawsuit, > telling a federal judge the wholesale vacuuming up of all phone-call > metadata in the United States is in the "public interest," does not breach > the constitutional rights of Americans and cannot be challenged in a court > of law._

Oh, this changes everything. It's in our public interest, so we have nothing to worry about, guys. We can all go back to arguing vim vs emacs now.

<comment><USER8> Not only that, but "the requested injunction is irreconcilable with the public interest". Irreconcilable. I expected them to say the "public interest" bit, but... wow.

<comment><USER7> Reading the Administration's statements made my brain start screaming Ayn Rand quotes about "the public interest" at me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another infuriating and disappointing move by the Obama administration. On the contrary, this _will_ be challenged in the courts by groups like the EFF and ACLU until they've won.

Let's make Feds remember that they work for us instead of special interests, corporations and the military/surveillance-industrial complex.

<comment><USER10> Infuriating? This was exactly what everyone expected them to do. Of course they are going to rigorously defend their own spying program and using the best legal tactics available to them.

<comment><USER11> This isn't the "change" people voted for. That's why he's furious. He sadly mistook what a politician said to get votes for what he would actually do once in power. Most people make that mistake, I can't say I blame him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal."

</comment><comment><USER13> Note this story was also near the top of /r/news on Reddit, but has since been removed.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1in7p5/president_obama...](http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1in7p5/president_obama_nsa_surveillance_cannot_be/)

<comment><USER14> Why is this relevant to the discussion?

<comment><USER13> Because a big part of these stories is how they are being spun and downplayed by the corporate media. Reddit is one of the few places in which such stories (concerning the loss of individual rights and government checks and balances) can still reach a large audience. And /r/news is one of the few remaining default subreddits that is relevant to such stories. For it to be deleted right as it is about to reach the front page is concerning, because we _need_ an informed public now more than ever.

<comment><USER7> Technically speaking, isn't Wired "corporate media"?

<comment><USER15> _" Corporate media" is a term which refers to a system of mass media production, distribution, ownership, and funding which is dominated by corporations and their CEOs. It is sometimes used as a term of derision to indicate a media system which does not serve the public interest in place of the mainstream media or "MSM," which tends to be used by both the political left and the right as a derisive term._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_media](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_media)

<comment><USER7> Now explain to me why Wired doesn't fit that definition.

<comment><USER15> No contest. I don't read Wired. Too corporate.

<comment><USER7> Haha, okay. I misinterpreted the Wikipedia quote as a correction of my original comment. Sorry!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> tl;dr:

1\. The surveillance occurs in secret

2\. Due to #1, you can't possibly prove that you, specifically, are a target of surveillance

3\. Due to #2, you have no standing with the court

QED. I am speechless.

<comment><USER17> Are we only talking about broad surveillance that is not targeted at specific people, or are we also talking about surveillance where some agency got a warrant to spy on a particular person or place?

For instance, if the FBI gets a warrant to bug the office of the head of the Gambino crime family, should he be able to sue to find that out?

<comment><USER18> All these questions fall flat when the federal government can slap 'national security secret' on anything.

Suffice to say the government will pull out all stops to combat your legal challenge, the judicial branch will side with them for obvious reasons, and your congressional representative will send you a canned response detailing how it's for the children/for fighting terrorists/none of your business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "one of the largest surveillance efforts ever launched by a democratic > government."

Common, don't be shy! Don't pretend there are some "non-democratic" governments somewhere that do even more surveillance!

Largest ever launched by any government, by far.

</comment><comment><USER20> I look forward to the day where the American public realizes its government thinks its citizens are no better than enemies.

<comment><USER21> Oh we've realized it. We just don't seem to care enough to do anything about it. If we did try to do anything we would just end up getting arrested for being a terrorist.

<comment><USER20> I think we, the more informed individuals, have realized it. IMO there is a large chunk of the American population that either doesn't care, doesn't know or actually thinks this is in their best interest.

A few voices on the internet don't have any leverage vs a whole silence country.

<comment><USER22> The age demographic on HN is also deeply skewed. I'm hoping that once the 25ish-year-olds run for Congress we'll see a shift.

It's all I can do right now, other than write my Congressman.

<comment><USER20> I agree with this. I don't expect there to be much change in the US for another 30 years, unfortunately. Hopefully by then the technology to transplant my brain into a newer, fresher body is available. That way I can enjoy a truly free America, hopefully one that focuses on science and engineering rather than whatever the hell the focus of it is now. War? World domination?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So along these lines the government should have no problem supplying me with the names and home addresses of all of the government officials, provided that I really, REALLY promise (seriously!) to not look at it unless I'm authorized to. Because I don't actually HAVE it until I LOOK at it.

Cool, where do I find this data? I promise not to look until I'm authorized!

</comment><comment><USER23> Orin Kerr (law professor at George Washington University) has written on the subject of whether the collection of phone metadata violates the 4th Amendment, given the history of Supreme Court opinions on the matter:

[http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/17/metadata-the-nsa-and-the- fo...](http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/17/metadata-the-nsa-and-the-fourth- amendment-a-constitutional-analysis-of-collecting-and-querying-call-records- databases/)

In short, these legal actions have a hard journey ahead of them.

</comment><comment><USER24> The government deciding what is and what is not constitutional?

What could go wrong.

<comment><USER25> The government isn't deciding it. It's _asserting_ its position. To a judge, who will make the actual decision.

<comment><USER24> As long as what's being challenged as unconstitutional in court is protected as a state secret, that sadly isn't the case.

<comment><USER25> Yes it is. Adding adjectives to your argument doesn't make it more persuasive.

<comment><USER24> State secrets completely undermine the concept of judicial checks on government power. This isn't a new idea, it's been heavily criticized since Bush has been in power and expanded the use of it:

> Glenn Greenwald alleges that the Bush administration attempted to expand > executive power, as evidenced by the unitary executive theory propagated by > John Yoo. The theory suggests that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, > cannot be bound by Congress or any law, national or international. By > invoking the state secrets privilege in cases involving actions taken in the > war on terror (i.e. extraordinary rendition, allegations of torture, > allegedly violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Greenwald > opines the administration tried to evade judicial review of these claims of > exceptional war powers. In effect, this is preventing a judicial ruling > determining whether there is a legal basis for such expansive executive > power. With that in mind, applying this privilege makes impeachment the only > possible means left for Congress to exercise their duty to uphold the checks > and balances constitutionally intended to prevent abuse of power.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege)

Since impeachment is a highly unlikely scenario... if a government action is unconstitutional and citizens have a no way of challenging the constitutionality in court due to the _government_ deeming it's actions were a secret, then how is the government _not_ deciding what is considered constitutional or not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I was raised to believe that a core tenet of the government was checks and balances.

<comment><USER27> It is a core tenant of the government, but it is also a core tenant of the government that policy is decided via republican process, not unelected philosopher kings (judges). From that tenant comes the principle of judicial restraint. Conservatives would characterize it as the un-elected judiciary showing appropriate deference to the elected executive and legislature. Liberals usually characterize it as punting.

<comment><USER28> The problem is that this is exactly the type of issue a court should decide. When the government violates clearly expressed tenants of the Constitution, Federal courts stand as the sole safeguard between the people and the unbridled power of the state.

Now, I'm not saying this is that exact situation. But it's definitely something I'd want a court to examine in detail.

<comment><USER27> > The problem is that this is exactly the type of issue a court should decide.

Historically, policies relating to national security have _not_ been within the purview of the federal courts. It's not some new phenomenon: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-schuck/national- securi...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-schuck/national- security_b_3543312.html).

The Supreme Court didn't intervene when Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. It didn't intervene when Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. It didn't intervene in Japanese internment.

<comment><USER28> That's false.

The Supreme Court is, and has been since 1803, the final arbiter of the constitutionality of national security programs.

The Alien and Sedition Acts were never appealed to the Supreme Court because the power of judicial review wasn't established until 1803, but they have referenced the acts in modern opinions and said they would be found unconstitutional.

SCOTUS did in fact hear argument and issue a decision on Japanese internment, mostly famously in favor of the government in Korematsu v. United States, but they also struck down indefinite detention in Ex Parte Endo.

In Ex Parte Merryman, Chief Justice Taney ruled Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional. This almost precipitated a constitutional crisis, as Lincoln either threatened or actually ordered him to be arrested.

In modern times there were the Guantanamo cases: Boumediene, Rasul, Hamdi, Hamden.

And that's just working off your examples. The Supreme Court absolutely decides the constitutionality of national security cases.

<comment><USER29> I believe what rayiner is describing is similar to the "political question" test. The court may have the ability to hear and decide on any constitutional question or appellate dispute, but they have determined certain issues to be fundamentally political in nature (such as gerrymandering), or primarily subject to legislative remedies (many national security issues, including Korematsu, which upheld broad discretion in affording leeway to the federal government in the interest of national security).

You may disagree with this. But, the Supreme Court has a staggering amount of written and unwritten precedent and protocol that is considered. And national security based cases are unlikely to be subject to as strict of scrutiny before the Court.

<comment><USER28> You're moving the goal posts. "Strict scrutiny" is a specific legal standard that isn't really relevant to this discussion which implicates clearly established constitutional rights (automatically invoking a higher standard of review.)

The courts side against the government in national security cases all the time. See e.g. Ex Parte Endon, Merryman, Hamdi, Hamden, etc. so I'm really not sure what you're trying to say.

The Supreme Court also routinely addresses political questions, see e.g. Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, Griswald v. Connecticut etc. The "political question test" is not a tenant of constitutional law, but rather an element of some conservative jurisprudence. Incidentally, one with which I'm intimately familiar, having taken Constitutional Law from Robert George.

The statement that the Supreme Court doesn't decide issues of national security, from a historical perspective, are just not correct. I've been told it's polite to give people a way out in these types of scenarios, but this is Hacker News. I don't disagree with some "unwritten precedent and protocol," I disagree with your statements.

All of which, by the way, I've proven wrong citing specific case law. This isn't discussion sections or precept. You can't not do the reading, wave your hands, and expect me to go along.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm not a lawyer, but to say that this "cannot be challenged in court" is a pretty terrible interpretation. The government _asks_ the court system (where this is, in fact, already being challenged) to deny an injunction stopping the metadata collection before this is fully heard in court.

<comment><USER31> > I'm not a lawyer, but to say that this "cannot be challenged in court" is a > pretty terrible interpretation. The government asks the court system (where > this is, in fact, already being challenged) to deny an injunction stopping > the metadata collection before this is fully heard in court.

They don't do that. They actually go beyond that to say that not only should the injunction be denied, but that the filing should be dismissed for failing to state a claim heir complaint should be dismissed for failure to state a claim "that plausibly suggest[s] an entitlement to relief."

Which is, exactly, saying that the challenge they raise is not the kind which can be considered by a court.

<comment><USER30> Which is just fairly typical legal maneuvering in _any_ case - <USER2> complaintant files an injunction, the defendant writes that the injunction should not proceed and that instead they file a motion to dismiss summarily.

If we have a process story about every single motion filed in these cases, we're in for a long, tedious hall.

Regardless, these motions _will_ of course, be heard in court and the title remains awful.

<comment><USER31> The title is a perfectly accurate representation of the government's argument, which is that the Court's authority on this matter is limited to recognizing that the substantive questions raised are not ones subject to adjudication and dismissing the entire matter on that baisis without reaching the substance of the claims.

The fact that such arguments are within he range of common legal arguments does not make a title accurately reflecting them "awful".

<comment><USER30> Can you cite that from the article? Because I don't see that anywhere. What I see is:

> ... the alleged metadata program is fully consistent with the Fourth > Amendment ... Because the Fourth Amendment is not breached, it follows that > the First Amendment is not violated either

Which asks for a summary dismissal. The referenced article never suggests that the court lacks authority, at least not that I can read.

So I will continue to deem the title awful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why not intentionally put someone in the "surveillance spotlight"? Have them checkout on the wrong books from the library, join the wrong forums, frequently make phone calls to foreign malign actors overseas. Then lay all of this information bare to the public and say "Either I am being surveilled by the NSA or they are utterly incompetent to the point of not being effective in their charge". If then you still don't have standing, at least sue them for not doing their jobs. (Disclaimer: IANAL)

<comment><USER11> It's a really nice idea. I like it.

Sadly in order for it to be effective, at least according to a recent article I saw, you'd have to connect yourself purposefully with a terrorist to less than 3 degrees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why a blowjob get more outcry than.ignoring the constitution repeatedly in US? As non US person I don't get it.

<comment><USER12> Short version: they have propaganda down to a science here. The blowjob scandal came out of a massive PR campaign and courtroom circus created by Republicans for political gain; meanwhile, most members of both parties are supporting the spying program, with the implication that most of them already knew about it.

Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" pretty much captures the way that America's democracy has been hacked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> How can enough people add their name to the the suit that it becomes a statistical likelihood to meet the criteria for standing? I would imagine that if you get as many people on the no-fly list as possible to be party to the suit then it is almost a certainty that at least one of the plaintiffs have had their information monitored and the suit can move forward.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm confused: why does the executive branch ("Obama's administration" in paragraph 1) get to tell a judge this or submit a "filing"?

Is this just them stating their position? At what point can/will SCOTUS get involved?

 _(pardon my ignorance if I incorrectly assumed the president doesn 't get to decide what's constitutional)_

<comment><USER31> > I'm confused: why does the executive branch ("Obama's administration" in > paragraph 1) get to tell a judge this or submit a "filing"?

The same reason you get to submit a filing stating your legal position if you get sued. Because otherwise, court cases would be pretty one-sided.

> Is this just them stating their position? At what point can/will SCOTUS get > involved?

If/when it gets appealed to the SCOTUS after decisions by the lower courts and SCOTUS decides to accept the appeal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Nice dictatorship with a faux democracy attached you have got there, people ... I take it that since the president set up FISA and the NSA spying, which cannot be unrooted by a court, he considers himself completely immune and above the law also.

</comment><comment><USER37> You (and I mean you, Ameican reader) put up with full scale systemic 4th Amendment violations by TSA searching every bag at airports on grounds of public safety and non-targeted searches.

NSA now does the same, just with phones. Precedent matters.

</comment><comment><USER38> Wow, I didn't see that one coming </sarcasm>. I just hope the patriot act gets killed or significantly rewritten for the better in 2015 when it is up for renewal.

</comment><comment><USER39> So much for that "debate" we were supposed to have. There's also the "balance" thing that apparently only Obama administration gets to decide on.

</comment><comment><USER40> Time for a revolution!</comment>


Microsoft Edge and Chromium Open Source: Our Intent - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdge <comment><USER2> I really think the alarm about Edge adopting Chromium is silly. Microsoft is more than capable of forking the project, so using it does _not_ give Google more control over the web.

What exactly do people think is going to happen? If Google starts doing strange things thinking they can because "everyone uses Chromium", then downstream just won't adopt those changes, and then there will be two Chromiums. All the panic about a Google "monopoly" of the web is absurd. Google lost the ability to do anything like that the moment they open sourced the project.

</comment><comment><USER3> Presumably Microsoft have only one motivation at all for even having a web browser, and that is to control the default search engine. This seems like a commercially sensible move.

</comment><comment><USER4> The thing that surprises me the most about this statement is how strongly it emphasizes _open source_ (which is mentioned _19 times_ ) as motivation for the switch to Chromium.

<comment><USER5> "open source" is the new "developers".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > For the past few years, Microsoft has meaningfully increased participation > in the open source software (OSS) community

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

[https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/705216/download](https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/705216/download)</comment>


The world is socialist - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2011/01/01/theWorldIsSocialist.html <comment><USER2> The author suggests that Ayn Rand would have had no response to the question of "who cleans up the snow storm?", as if the idea of events affecting the collective simply never occurred to her. What the author claims to be a gap in her philosophy is actually a lack of understanding of it on his part. That she had responses to many common criticisms should be obvious, but a focal point of his argument rests on the false assumption that she did not.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think the author understands that state socialism implies coercive sharing, not voluntary resource pooling.

<comment><USER4> In his defence, I find arguments that it's "coercive" for the state to take money from me in return for services rendered but not for my landlord to do the same to generally be tenuous[1]. The reality is that we live in a world where various entities claim "ownership" of resources, and governments are able to claim the "rule of law" over large areas of territory, and despite the conflicts and examples of egregious unfairness the system generates, we're usually better off for it than fighting for ourselves.

[1]I'm equally free to leave both my rental contract (upon expiry) and the UK tax regime for cheaper/better alternatives. In the absence of the government "coercively" imposing rule of law backed by social norms I would not only be free from the government redirecting a proportion of my pay packet to other causes, but also from any incentive whatsoever to divert a similarly large proportion of my income to be able to live in a property the overseas-based owner has quite possibly never even visited.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _There really isn't that much range in the smartness or fitness of human beings._

Capitalism isn't necessarily about rewarding people that are "better".

It's about rewarding people that are productive in the ways in which other people value.

It rewards people for making stuff other people want. It's about rewarding me more for learning an in-demand trade than for skateboarding all day.

</comment><comment><USER6> An argument against an ideology's handling of a particular problem is useless unless it quotes and responds to a respectable proponent on that subject. There are plenty of Objectivists and libertarians who have written about the provision of public goods.

Winer should read PG on How To Disagree: <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> I am pretty tired of smears against Ayn Rand that amount to: I read her when I was a teenager and I was hoodwinked into her ideas. That's your issue, not hers.

I'll never forget her response to this very type of attack which you can see at the 8:15 mark of this YouTube video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6jkQKAv13A>

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a content-free political rant, as you'd expect from the title.

</comment><comment><USER9> Thought experiment:

How many able-bodied people are there in NYC? Let's say 2 million.

If each of them had shoveled snow for 15 minutes with a snow shovel (working in shifts, let's say, as there are not 2 million snow shovels) just in the area they personally were affected by, how effective would that have been vs. what happened?

<comment><USER10> It sounds good until you ask 'where are they going to put all that snow'? Can't put it on the sidewalks, cars are parked on the sides of the roads. The process of getting rid of that much snow in NYC involves industrial snow melting machines, the sewer system, the rivers, and coordination of trucks. Not so simple as getting together and shovelling out.

<comment><USER9> I was actually talking about a relative level of effectiveness - surely doing some shoveling even without snow melting, etc. would have resulted in something better (not "completely fixed") ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Maybe there's a different premise. They [TV news channels] cover politics. Politics is a Democratic and Republican game.It's left and right. But then you begin to confuse everything through that same conflict. I think the conflict that would be more appropriate to devote a news channel to would be corruption."

John Stewart on the Rachel Maddow Show.

<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908//vp/40141311#40141311>

Worth thinking about?

</comment><comment><USER12> Americans, through blatant ignorance and misuse of the term over the last few years (on both sides of the political aisle), you've _ALL_ forfeited the right to use the world "socialism" until such time as you can prove you actually know what the word means and can use it properly.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, but it's a fair cop. Social services != socialism.

Socialism is the government control of production, and it's largely dead outside of Cuba and North Korea.

<comment><USER13> _Socialism is the government control of production, and it's largely dead outside of Cuba and North Korea._

Nope, not necessarily. There are many definitions of socialism, and lots of movements defined as socialists. Many of them don't involve State control of production, eg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism>

<comment><USER12> You can find a few outliers (such as the usual crop of left-anarchists who want to smash governments and replace them with, um, _different_ organizations that make people in their territories follow rules through coercion), but they are of no significance and give no cover to the sloppy American tendency to call a capitalist society with a welfare state "socialist".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mark Zuckerberg Sucks at Coding Now - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5839340/mark-zuckerberg-sucks-at-writing-code-now <comment><USER2> He sucks because he jumped into code he hasn't looked at for years, took time to understand how it all worked, recreated the bug, fixed the code and tested it just a bit slower than the guy who is working on that code every day??? I'd say he did alright and most engineers would be in the same situation, if not worse.</comment>


Sea Monsters on Mediæval and Renaissance Maps (Lecture by Chet Van Duzer) (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUvMr86UZq4 <comment><AUTHOR> Review of the book the lecture was based upon was submitted to HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6315205](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6315205) in 2013 with some scanned TL;DR images in a blog post.</comment>


Impermium acquired by Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.impermium.com/

<comment><USER2> From Crunchbase:

 _Impermium is a cybersecurity technology startup that protects over 1.5M sites and has processed over 8B total transactions in its 3-year history. The company's advanced risk-evaluation platform improves account management by identifying fraudulent registrations, compromised logins, and risky transactions. It has proven successful at stopping fraudulent user account registrations in real-time — using a blend of machine learning, statistical anomaly detection, and a proprietary database of malicious actors — for hundreds of transactions per second from many of the largest consumer Internet companies._

It looks like it was founded in 2010 by a few ex-Yahoo! spam guys and had raised $9mm in 2 rounds from the typical list of tech VCs. LinkedIn lists 20 employees, so probably 30ish total.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it just me or does anyone else feel lile they're thanking their customers for being guinea pigs for experimenting their WIP.systems. That the end game was always a Google acquisition and these customers were just a way to prove that something of value had been built. Now that it is done, so long, and thanks for all the fish.

<comment><USER3> Okay, why the negative votes? Just read their announcement. It reads like a farewell note to their current customers (at least to me).

<comment><USER4> I read your comment as being a cynical.

Playing devil's advocate, assuming what you are saying is correct (customers were guinea pigs and this was all about the exit) - its really tough not sounding like a douche.

When writing that sort of copy, you have to always take the high road.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> best $7K spent:

[http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/21/impermium/](http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/21/impermium/)

"Rather than use an internal data services team, the company turned to Kaggle, a startup that hosts data-driven competitions.

From around the world, statisticians competed to build a tool that combines machine learning and natural language processing to root out malicious commentary. The winner received $7,000 — their solution was the most accurate with a false positive rate of less than one percent.

After posting the competition, the company received 154 submissions from contenders, and made some interesting discoveries about the nature of hate speech. "

<comment><USER6> They probably spent twice that - Kaggle takes a cut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Mental Summarize:_

Impermium is Joining Google!

January 15, 2014

When we founded Impermium three years ago, our mission was to help rid the web of spam, fraud, and abuse. By joining Google, our team will extend a special thank you to Accel Partners, AOL Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Data Collective, Freestyle Capital, Greylock Partners, Highland Capital Partners, Morado Ventures, and the Social+Capital Partnership.

</comment><comment><USER8> So what exactly did they do?

<comment><USER9> Impermium protects SaaS application users from account hijacking and account compromise.

<comment><USER10> so what exactly did they do?

<comment><USER11> Livefyre was one of their early users. Every comment submitted into any comment widget hosted by Livefyre was sent over to Impermium for spam analysis. Impermium had a pretty cool 2 phase process where they'd give you a rough spam score within seconds and then a more accurate score within minutes.

Livefyre had some sophisticated behavior as a result. Comments were always pushed live to other page viewers immediately while simultaneously sent to Impermium, then revoked (via live update) if either the first or second pass through Impermium resulted in a spam indication. Email notifications weren't released until the second pass indicated nonspam.

Not sure if Livefyre still uses Impermium today or what this buyout may mean for them, but I always thought the concept was pretty cool.

<comment><USER12> Disqus did (does?) use Impermium as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how much they were acquired for, seeing has Google dropped ~3 billion on Nest..

<comment><USER14> I don't think I've ever seen anyone round off 200 million dollars before.

<comment><USER15> Forbes did it: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2014/01/15/goog...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2014/01/15/google- and-nest-the-long-and-tetchy-view/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Google is on a shopping spree, Eh?!</comment>


Presentation Skills Considered Harmful - <AUTHOR> http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/10/4/presentation-skills-considered-harmful <comment><USER2> There is no skill as having a message to convey. There is no more frightening situation than having to talk without a message.

And it boils down to just that.

Easy and simple. Just tell your message. But be sure to have one.</comment>


Why bzr and launchpad?  Launchpad is open source. - <AUTHOR> http://renesd.blogspot.com/2010/03/why-bzr-and-launchpad-launchpad-is-open.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A few months ago, I mentioned on HN that I've switched to bzr again... after having troubles with it a few years ago. Then someone asked me to report back after a month or so to say how I went.

In short, bzr is going fine for me. I've had none of the problems I had before. I think in large part because they've settled on stable releases, and development releases. So they are concentrating on making a stable release, at the same time continuing their great pace of development on their development releases. Also, the file format seems to have stabalised... and just lots of polish generally I guess.

All new projects I've been using bzr. As well a few open source projects of mine I've released using bzr+launchpad. Also there are a couple of launchpad bzr using open source projects I've been using.

Finally I've used it with a couple of subversion projects... which work really well. I just create a bzr branch... which downloads the whole history locally. Then when I commit, it commits to the svn branch. However, I can easily branch with bzr and commit to that branch, before merging back into svn. Haven't had any trouble doing it that way.

Anyway... there's my bzr experience. No issues this time around. Kind of boring, like how a vcs should be.</comment>


MVP in one weekend - <AUTHOR> http://www.blakejennelle.com/2010/06/my-new-startup/ <comment><USER2> Wow, really cool. I like the idea and the development process. Very bare-bones MVP, but still useful. You'll even get to have an excuse to market it wherever you go. "Hey, why are you dressed like a cowboy?" "It's for charity. I have this website..."

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much. It would be hilarious to walk around like a cowboy in the middle of a big city in the summertime. If I have to wear that for a whole month it better be great marketing! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome app!

I was about to donate but then I felt shy about handing my credit card info over to an app that was built in two days. Give me the warm fuzzies about my credit card number being safe and I'll donate. :)

<comment><USER3> Haha, I totally understand. Rest assured that the payment processing is all buttoned up. We use Paypal Website Payments Pro behind SSL encryption. All of the other $500+ in donations have gone through without a single hitch.

So there, I hope you are feeling the warm fuzzies right now. And huge thanks for wanting to donate to someone you only met over the interwebs. That gives me the warm fuzzies. :)

<comment><USER4> Cool. One more thing: do you store the credit card number (either database or log files)?

<comment><USER3> Nope. We process the transaction and that's the last time we touch the number. It's not stored anywhere in our system.

<comment><USER4> Warm fuzzies accomplished. Donated!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Warning: not about the Model View Presenter pattern. In this case it stands for Minimum Viable Product.

<comment><USER6> Or Microsoft's Most Valued Person.

<comment><USER7> I always called it Model View Controller... MVC

<comment><USER5> MVP is a derivative of MVC, but there are more specific expectations around a Presenter than there are around a Controller.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_View_Presenter></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why are microservices said to have better scalability capabilities than SOA? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Why-are-microservices-said-to-have-better-scalability-capabilities-than-SOA/answer/Oliver-Wolf-6?share=1 <comment><USER2> As someone who has worked in several environments where microservices were used, I try to avoid deploying them as long as I can. In return for the scalability you get a lot of complexity that it can quickly turn into a near full-time job to manage. There is still no easy turn-key way to use in production and test environments, and you are left with a patchwork of solutions that require active maintenance.

Microservice architectures are a great way to solve a certain class of problems, but they can be a real pain at the same time.</comment>


Why companies won't hire - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/08/frum.economy.hiring/

<comment><USER2> Did anyone else notice that points 1, 2, and 3 in the article sound like really good things? People saving more, employees being employed more efficiently, companies not being over-exuberant (which is what leads to bubbles in the first place.)</comment>