Other issues that are way more important than hacking and startups:
* Wars.
* Human rights.
* The fact that people die of hunger.
And yet, those are all not really on-topic for this site either.
It would be extremely easy to crowd out all the 'on topic' stories with things that are vastly more important "in the grand scheme of things", yet it would ruin the nature of this site.
Articles about stoning women are also, IMO, off topic, so the problem with the 'muslim extremist' simply shouldn't happen.
(BTW, I much prefer the health care situation here in Italy than in my native US, but discussing it is just not what this site is about.)
RE: the article not being "intellectually gratifying".
The situation sounds enormously distressing but the author's writing style isn't overwrought at all.
Even on a purely intellectual level, this is a devastating rebuttal of the point that "nobody dies from lack of health insurance". On the level of common decency, what is wrong with treating the people in the story as regular human beings with social ties, rather than some sort of people in the abstract?
If you find an article that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" on those topics then please submit them. Don't conflate HN with only startup news. It has never had that restriction, it's more of a primary focus.
HN is not /r/StartUps. There are no hard rules here on specific content, only community consensus via voting and occasional hands-on moderation.
There's nothing whatsoever 'intellectually gratifying' about this article. It's a way to tug at people's emotions in order to attempt to sway their opinions.
And I say that as someone who agrees with the point of the article.
I disagree. Tugging at emotions and learning something aren't mutually exclusive. As someone who lives outside of the US, I had never envisioned this scenario before. It's jarring every time, and you never really wrap your head around the horrible possibilities.
Of all the problems I'm aware of with the US healthcare system, I never thought of someone refusing life-saving treatment because their kids would have to deal with the bill. Deferring treatment, sure. But I figured if you're dead, you're dead.
The fact that they chase your relatives for the bill after you die is really disgusting and something I hadn't thought about until this article painted that picture for me, and now I'm involved in multiple discussions about it.
I actually do see articles in the above veins often, and they are very interesting and appreciated. They often get called off topic too, but the guidelines for HN clearly allow them and actually encourage them.
* Wars.
* Human rights.
* The fact that people die of hunger.
And yet, those are all not really on-topic for this site either.
It would be extremely easy to crowd out all the 'on topic' stories with things that are vastly more important "in the grand scheme of things", yet it would ruin the nature of this site.
Articles about stoning women are also, IMO, off topic, so the problem with the 'muslim extremist' simply shouldn't happen.
(BTW, I much prefer the health care situation here in Italy than in my native US, but discussing it is just not what this site is about.)