Sign so me and my disabled friends can leave America and find a better life aboard currently am in the process of getting a job so i can move there myself but in doing so am actively trying to better my life and eat right and start to recover from disability although i might not full recover i want to act as a beacon for hopes that Europe will treat me nicer than America.

Really interesting stuff here. Anthropic is basically saying the more the company grows, the more it can give back through this fund. No confirmed UBI payments yet.

At face value, this is a pretty generous and charitable thing for Anthropic to do. But I'm a bit curious about what this could mean for the future from a power checks/balances perspective.

It also makes me think about how much influence companies like Anthropic and OpenAI could have over governments. With open-source competition in the background, I'm curious whether this is also a way for Anthropic to position itself as more openly supportive of The People.

If this changes how you feel about working there, Anthropic Interview Questions includes a "Why Anthropic?" prompt to think through before applying.

I'm super curious to see how this plays out. What are your thoughts?

Suppose AI can replace enough paid work that labor stops giving most people much bargaining power. What would stop a basic-income system from leaving those people dependent on whoever controls the payment?

That's the concern I keep coming back to. UBI could provide a necessary income floor, but the amount, eligibility and access would still be decisions made by somebody. If ownership of productive assets is concentrated, how do recipients retain influence over those decisions?

Even now, the fallback is usually to look for another job. Tools such as job-application autofill can take some repeated form-filling out of that search. But the option to leave still depends on there being paid work to move into. If AI shrinks that option, what gives people room to refuse bad terms?

Individual savings could help during a transition. They wouldn't by themselves change that distribution of power. Surveillance could make dissent easier to monitor, and AI-enabled weapons could put more coercive power in fewer hands.

I worry about serious unrest or violence if livelihoods disappear faster than institutions adapt. I don't think that outcome is certain, but I want to understand what would make a peaceful transition more plausible.

For people who support UBI, what needs to accompany it? I'm particularly interested in democratic control, durable rights and broader ownership, rather than treating the payment amount as the whole solution.

The U.S. healthcare system costs significantly more than any other developed nation while leaving millions uninsured or underinsured. A persistent narrative suggests that guaranteeing universal, publicly funded healthcare would inevitably require broad tax hikes. However, fiscal analysis reveals an alternative reality: American taxpayers are already paying enough to fund comprehensive universal coverage. Whether approached through a conservative lens of cutting government waste, eliminating corporate cronyism, and enforcing free-market price transparency, or a progressive lens of securing healthcare as a baseline public right, the underlying arithmetic is the same. The root issue is not a funding deficit, but a fragmented, heavily bureaucratic system that inflates prices and diverts tax dollars away from direct patient care.
Direct expenditures on medically necessary care currently stand at roughly $4.49 trillion out of an overall national healthcare footprint exceeding $5.28 trillion. A substantial portion of this expense is driven by opaque, artificial price inflation. While U.S. hospitals incur approximately $1.5 trillion to $1.6 trillion in actual operating expenses for labor, facilities, and supplies, they generate between $4.5 trillion and $7.5 trillion in gross billed charges. Using internal "chargemaster" rate schedules, sticker prices are frequently marked up 300% to 500% over the actual cost of delivery, serving as an inflated baseline for insurer negotiations rather than reflecting true economic value. In turn, massive healthcare conglomerates absorb tens of billions of public dollars each year through government programs and contracts—such as UnitedHealth Group's more than $265 billion in lifetime federal prime obligations—without corresponding gains in consumer affordability or population health outcomes.

By comparison, peer nations provide universal coverage at a fraction of the cost. The United States spends over $14,775 per capita on healthcare, while the United Kingdom spends roughly $6,747. This divergence is driven primarily by administrative complexity and unconstrained pricing leverage. The multi-payer American billing system forces providers and insurers into protracted claims arbitrations, creating administrative waste that consumes nearly 25% of all domestic health spending. Peer nations systematically reduce these burdens by negotiating standardized reimbursement schedules and leveraging bulk purchasing power for prescription drugs, stripping out layers of non-clinical bureaucracy.

Federal fiscal data underscores the scale of existing public investment. In Fiscal Year 2025, the U.S. government collected $5.26 trillion in total revenues and spent approximately $7.01 trillion across all functions. The single largest component was $1.98 trillion allocated to public healthcare programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Health Administration. In effect, nearly 38% of all federal tax dollars collected are already dedicated to health coverage, yet these funds insure only about 40% of the population. The remaining 60% must secure private coverage, absorbing rising deductibles and out-of-pocket costs while their existing tax contributions already underwrite an inefficient delivery pipeline.

Applying peer-level administrative discipline demonstrates how far current resources could stretch. If the U.S. matched the UK’s National Health Service cost structure, covering all 340 million Americans would cost approximately $1.87 trillion annually—well beneath the $1.98 trillion the federal government already spends. Crucially, the U.S. does not need to accept the chronic underfunding or wait times that often challenge the NHS. If America simply froze per-person spending at its existing public rate of roughly $14,775 while eliminating bureaucratic churn, chargemaster markups, and pharmaceutical price-gouging, that same capital would support an exceptionally well-resourced system.

The United States could deliver world-class clinical capacity, shorter wait times, and comprehensive coverage without levying a single cent in new taxes. Simply put there is no benefit to American taxpayers with the insurance system when we could have better care, no insurance bill and also not have to pay a single cent more in taxes to get it. The people lobbying to keep the ludicrous system we have are the very same people profiting from your anguish.

Sources Used:
1. Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, "How does health spending in the U.S. compare to other countries?"
2. OECD Health Statistics / Health at a Glance, "Health expenditure per capita"
3. U.S. Department of the Treasury / Congressional Budget Office, "Federal Budget and Revenue Data for FY 2025"
4. American Hospital Association & CMS National Health Expenditure Data, "Hospital Expenditures, Operating Margins, and Gross Billed Charges"
5. USASpending.gov, "UnitedHealth Group Federal Prime Contracting and Sub-Award Obligations"
6. Annals of Internal Medicine / Health Affairs, "Health Care Administrative Costs in the United States and Canada: A Comprehensive Breakdown"