I am confused by the apparent expectation by many people both pro- and anti- that $1000 per month was going to cause poor people age 20-40 to have way better overall health and way higher healthcare spending.
Maybe there’s some mental model going around that a key thing poor people really need to spend their next marginal dollar on is their health, and if they do it will be impressively effective, but if they don’t then the poor people have caused UBI to fail by not spending their money rationally? This is surprising to me on all counts, but perhaps I haven’t seen the same evidence about healthcare spending that segment of the predictors have.
I don’t know if this was what the people had in mind, but one consideration is that being poor is often stressful, e.g. if you’re constantly worried about whether you’ll be able to afford the month’s rent. And chronic stress is bad for your health.
I agree. I would not expect the effect on health over 3 years to be significant outside of specific cases like it allowing someone to afford a critical treatment (e.g. insulin for a diabetic person), especially given the focus on a younger population.
I am confused by the apparent expectation by many people both pro- and anti- that $1000 per month was going to cause poor people age 20-40 to have way better overall health and way higher healthcare spending.
Maybe there’s some mental model going around that a key thing poor people really need to spend their next marginal dollar on is their health, and if they do it will be impressively effective, but if they don’t then the poor people have caused UBI to fail by not spending their money rationally? This is surprising to me on all counts, but perhaps I haven’t seen the same evidence about healthcare spending that segment of the predictors have.
I don’t know if this was what the people had in mind, but one consideration is that being poor is often stressful, e.g. if you’re constantly worried about whether you’ll be able to afford the month’s rent. And chronic stress is bad for your health.
I agree. I would not expect the effect on health over 3 years to be significant outside of specific cases like it allowing someone to afford a critical treatment (e.g. insulin for a diabetic person), especially given the focus on a younger population.