The series of garbage discussions about the “kill threshold” are finally over, and I’ve said all I need to say.

Here, I will subjectively analyze why American society is imperfect, and what institutional advantages Chinese society has in response.

1. The Chinese National Health Commission has strongly used administrative measures to keep the costs of China's healthcare system very low, which is a form of nationwide welfare.
It mainly employs two methods: one is building a large number of medical schools. The knowledge reserve of Chinese medical undergraduates is equivalent to an American MD (Doctor of Medicine). About 500,000 medical bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral graduates come out each year, leading to a supply of clinicians greater than demand.
Meanwhile, only about 20,000 clinicians graduate with an MD degree in the US annually.
The downside is that medical students find abundant employment, but their wages are extremely low, and they face huge workloads in outpatient clinics, hospitalization, and surgeries.
Peking University Medical School’s eight-year bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral program produces top talent, including those who scored 680 on the college entrance exam, who still need to undergo three years of standardized training, residency, and attending physician roles, earning around 10,000 yuan per month, seeing 100 outpatient cases daily, with registration fees of 20 yuan.
Another approach is the aggressive price reduction in medical insurance procurement, where common drugs are generic domestics, medical devices are domestically produced, and diagnostic tools like CT, MRI, blood tests, and ultrasounds are driven down to cost price, with insurance reimbursements making the costs of common illnesses and medications extremely low.
The obvious benefit is that, from a healthcare cost perspective, costs are reduced to 1/100 to 1/10 of those in the US, significantly lowering the societal burden.
Of course, many say their commercial insurance can reimburse 100%, but I must point out that the bulk of US healthcare costs are borne by the insurance industry, which ultimately is paid for by individual companies and ordinary workers.
When a company helps you buy very expensive commercial insurance that covers 100% of hospital bills, it’s because the insurance itself is among the most expensive globally.
(Of course, China’s urban medical insurance for major illnesses covers about 70%, and I strongly recommend everyone over 50 buy a major Chinese commercial insurance plan to cover the remaining 30%, as well as costs for original and targeted drugs ))

2. Many US states have long adopted a “decriminalization” policy for marijuana, meaning “selling marijuana is illegal but not a crime,” which leaves marijuana sales in a gray area. This objectively allows various channels for marijuana to flow, and some of these channels also distribute hard drugs (like fentanyl and opioids).
Because marijuana is decriminalized, these channels cannot be promptly shut down, leading to the long-term existence of these gray markets, especially for hard drugs.
China has a very good approach—like all other East Asian countries, it maintains zero tolerance for drugs, meaning the middle ground of “marijuana legalization” or “decriminalization” simply does not exist in Chinese society.
Given the average quality of the Chinese population, especially in rural and county areas, opening up this kind of policy would undoubtedly be a disaster, bringing in large-scale black market and money laundering activities.
Therefore, root-and-branch eradication, including marijuana, is actually a very good strategy for these East Asian countries—if they cannot control it, it’s better to completely ban it and adopt zero tolerance, preventing increasingly extreme abuse of hard drugs.
For those with unrestrained indulgence, this is a passive form of protection; otherwise, it’s easy to lose social competence.

3. The overall operating costs of higher education in the US are very high. Although many students in states only pay in-state tuition, and families with annual incomes below $80,000 get free tuition, there are no situations where in-state public university undergraduates cannot afford tuition.
But overall, university operating costs are still very high—funding PhDs, administrative staff, professors, maintenance, various services—all contribute to high expenses that cannot be significantly reduced.
Plus, many American undergraduates cannot waive their tuition fees, and with expensive rent and living costs, many still need to take loans.
For non-STEM master’s and doctoral students, especially JD and MD students, they are mostly self-funded and face heavy financial burdens.
Chinese public universities have two clear advantages: one is that tuition is very low—regardless of bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral programs, even in medical schools and popular majors, annual tuition is about 7,000 yuan, roughly equivalent to free.
The other advantage is that Chinese universities almost 100% provide dormitories and have welfare-oriented cafeterias, so students don’t need to rent outside and can enjoy the city’s lowest rent and cheap meals on campus.
Annual rent is around 500–1,000 RMB, with some subsidies for poor students’ meal cards and affordable cafeteria food, making living costs nearly zero and greatly reducing the burden of loans.
This is a real solution for many people at the bottom of society—addressing urgent needs.

4. The living costs for the absolute bottom tier in China are very low compared to countries at similar levels of development worldwide.
If someone wants to “lie flat,” renting in second- or third-tier remote areas is very cheap.
After the real estate bubble burst and ghost cities or old industrial cities in Northeast China saw property prices halved, buying a house and semi-retiring in these places is also an option (provided there’s no property tax).
Plus, China’s basic electricity, water, gas, and internet are relatively cheap and reliable.
From an absolute cost perspective, a small house can sustain a relatively decent life at very low costs.
If there is rural homestead land, under China’s near-zero welfare system, one can be self-sufficient—feeding on corn and sweet potatoes, and if wanting to earn more, planting fruit.
There’s basically no risk of “mass urbanization but with crises”—you can always return to rural areas, rely on kinship networks, and continue surviving.
Furthermore, as a manufacturing powerhouse, China offers low-cost options for cookware, utensils, rice, oil, salt, and everyday essentials.
Maintaining a basic modern life with a smartphone, TV, refrigerator, washing machine, and electric tricycle is feasible.
Countries with even lower costs and similar GDP and income levels are much poorer—countries with per capita GDP around $10,000, similar to China, have almost the lowest costs.
This results in extremely low rigid survival expenses—buying rice, flour, eggs, vegetables, and oil is easy; owning a phone, TV, washing machine, refrigerator, and affordable clothes from Pinduoduo keeps living costs minimal, allowing a stable life.