Perhaps I chose my words poorly, and we'll call them net-tax-payers and net-tax-receivers instead. The people involved will be pretty aware of which situation they're in.
Besides, total social spending in the US is about 2.5 trillion dollars, or about $650/person/month. That's what basic income would realistically pay (assuming illegal immigrants get nothing, otherwise it'd be $630). The flip side of this would be to kill all government support programs. No more Obamacare, no more social security, no more veteran pensions, nothing like that. All replaced by that pitiful amount.
Good luck paying cancer treatments from that. Hell, good luck paying getting bandaged after a simple scratch from a fall for that amount. If you don't cover medical insurance, then of course it would have to be less (to be exact it would be $360 per month per person).
Now you could say cancer treatments will become cheaper. And sure enough they will. However, even Martin Shkreli worked with a profit margin of around 30%. So ... if you make the treatments more than 30% cheaper (assuming all of pharma is as much of a scumbag as he is, which it isn't, 10% is more common), you can say goodbye to improvements. They won't happen. For quite a few treatments there is an actual reason to be that expensive (e.g. paying for a surgeon's training, 10 years of living, ... and then having them operate, with a staff of 5 each trained for 5 years, in an impeccably clean room, fresh expensive equipment that mostly gets thrown away after one use because it's just too risky otherwise, ... Oh, and don't forget : you replaced most spending with basic income, so you can't just fund that as well. This would have to be funded from that $650/person/month). You'd also have to accept market forces. You live in a town with less than 52 cancer patients per year ? (assuming 1 treatment takes about a week of work) No cancer treatment for you without long traveling, not included, of course, in the price.
You cannot just legislate your way out of economic problems. It doesn't work. When law fights economics, economics wins, and the whole country suffers. See the many attempts at doing it anyway, e.g. in Venezuela most recently. Or to put it another way: basic income will not stop the poor from suffering. Only having them do something useful enough to give them a good life will.
Besides, total social spending in the US is about 2.5 trillion dollars, or about $650/person/month. That's what basic income would realistically pay (assuming illegal immigrants get nothing, otherwise it'd be $630). The flip side of this would be to kill all government support programs. No more Obamacare, no more social security, no more veteran pensions, nothing like that. All replaced by that pitiful amount.
Good luck paying cancer treatments from that. Hell, good luck paying getting bandaged after a simple scratch from a fall for that amount. If you don't cover medical insurance, then of course it would have to be less (to be exact it would be $360 per month per person).
Now you could say cancer treatments will become cheaper. And sure enough they will. However, even Martin Shkreli worked with a profit margin of around 30%. So ... if you make the treatments more than 30% cheaper (assuming all of pharma is as much of a scumbag as he is, which it isn't, 10% is more common), you can say goodbye to improvements. They won't happen. For quite a few treatments there is an actual reason to be that expensive (e.g. paying for a surgeon's training, 10 years of living, ... and then having them operate, with a staff of 5 each trained for 5 years, in an impeccably clean room, fresh expensive equipment that mostly gets thrown away after one use because it's just too risky otherwise, ... Oh, and don't forget : you replaced most spending with basic income, so you can't just fund that as well. This would have to be funded from that $650/person/month). You'd also have to accept market forces. You live in a town with less than 52 cancer patients per year ? (assuming 1 treatment takes about a week of work) No cancer treatment for you without long traveling, not included, of course, in the price.
You cannot just legislate your way out of economic problems. It doesn't work. When law fights economics, economics wins, and the whole country suffers. See the many attempts at doing it anyway, e.g. in Venezuela most recently. Or to put it another way: basic income will not stop the poor from suffering. Only having them do something useful enough to give them a good life will.