> as they couldn't pay for medical services or medication on $12K
While their numbers do seem a bit low, they are not off by an order of magnitude. Canada's healthcare system averages $375/month expenses across all citizens. [0]
> tax revenue would decrease as at least a portion of the population would simply drop out of the workforce.
Even if the bottom 50% of earners drop out of the workforce, this is a loss of tax revenue of 2.25% [1]. So the first-order effect of reduced tax revenue isn't meaningful.
> It won't work in the real world. I have always wondered why otherwise intelligent and successful people keep bringing up ideas
It would be one thing if there was broad empirically-based consensus that BI "won't work in the real world" but if so you have not brought that evidence with you today. It is probably best to refrain from unsourced assertions that people who disagree with you are stupid.
> Canada's healthcare system averages $375/month expenses across all citizens.
That sounds great, but that's an apples to oranges comparison. Medical care in the US is drastically more expensive than in Canada, and unless we implement single payer (which will not happen) those numbers will not come down. Therefore $12K (which also has to cover living expenses) won't come close to supporting the medical expenses of the Medicare set in the US.
We are discussing fucking BI. Is BI more likely than single payer? "Medical care in US is drastically more expensive" is a problem to solve to implement proper BI, not a deficiency in BI proposal.
While their numbers do seem a bit low, they are not off by an order of magnitude. Canada's healthcare system averages $375/month expenses across all citizens. [0]
> tax revenue would decrease as at least a portion of the population would simply drop out of the workforce.
Even if the bottom 50% of earners drop out of the workforce, this is a loss of tax revenue of 2.25% [1]. So the first-order effect of reduced tax revenue isn't meaningful.
> It won't work in the real world. I have always wondered why otherwise intelligent and successful people keep bringing up ideas
It would be one thing if there was broad empirically-based consensus that BI "won't work in the real world" but if so you have not brought that evidence with you today. It is probably best to refrain from unsourced assertions that people who disagree with you are stupid.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_heal...
[1] http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html