Mike Lester for January 18, 2014

  1. Cowboyonhorse2
    Gypsy8  about 10 years ago

    Taxes and insurance has always been about the many sharing in the costs of the fewer higher users. The older contribute to the costs of education, which they no longer use. They share in the costs of neonatal and infant care, which are long gone. Men share in the costs of higher cost female reproductive care, and so they should since, the last I heard, it takes two to reproduce. Its part of living in a civilized social society.

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  2. Frankiefishville
    H P Hundt Premium Member about 10 years ago

    FAIL!

    I’ve never seen a doctor or hospital that won’t accept cash, so it’s always AVAILABLE.

    The whole point is to take money at gunpoint from some to lower the cost for others.

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    emptc12  about 10 years ago

    No one likes the idea of being a statistic. Everyone wants to be an individual on the high end of the graph. Probability doesn’t work that way. Age population graphs for the various countries take weird shapes..Whereas in previous centuries the age distribution graph was a broad-based triangle, now it is all kinds of rough pottery shapes. The one for modern Japan differs greatly from the one for India, for instance, because Japan has a large segment population of elderly. Government and business policies, and even popular perceptions based on the old triangle are increasingly obsolete. Japan is in trouble in this regard, as are many Western nations..From the time we are born to the time we die we are categorized and put into trends, and with the input of our data into computers it gets more intense. The figures are there, dispassionate and stark. It’s math, and math equations describe everything from quarks to galaxies, even our behavior..If youth prefer to avoid their part in this system, then anarchy and dystopia will result. The broken social bargain between youth and the elderly is the subject of many books and movies. The social bargain takes many variations of form, but it is in our nature.

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    Jason Allen  about 10 years ago

    “Why should women pay for prostate exams?”Are you suggesting insurance companies offer 3 or 4 dozen insurance packages to choose from?

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    Tigger asks, “Why should women pay for prostate exams?” Here in Ontario, where we have a single payer system, funded from taxes, we think this way: “The insurance system covers whatever medical care I may need.” For women that won’t include prostate exams, for men it won’t include hysterectomies.

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  6. Cowboyonhorse2
    Gypsy8  about 10 years ago

    “Why should women pay for prostate exams?”.And why should men pay for breast examinations?".Well, they’re all necessary parts in the reproductive function, which is a mutual endeavor.

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    And what are the consequences, intended and unintended, of blocking universal health insurance?

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    lonecat  about 10 years ago

    Yes, and that’s considerable progress. Considering the opposition, it was probably the best that could be done. And now that it’s there, maybe it can be made better.

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    emptc12  about 10 years ago

    Too bad, if ACA fails with nothing better to replace it. Although many don’t see the present value of ACA, if dire health emergencies arise in the future it might have been a good start toward dealing with them. Some organizational improvement toward greater medical coverage of all inhabitants of our nation (citizens and non-citizens) is badly needed, lest a microbial tsunami overwhelm us in the future. We live in a materially comfortable time, but large human populations, increasingly connected by modern transport, provide a fantastic breeding ground for diseases. .But our politicians prefer to squabble. Take the excessive money out of politics and let them know as our elected servants they represent us, not their corporate overlords. Both sides have forgotten their duties. I hope it doesn’t take a medical catastrophe to get cooperation..Plan ahead. Compromise. Our Youth are poorly served by the present political greed and gridlock.

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