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You're an insurance salesman. Of course you think so!

And it is 100% true for acts of god, life, death, car crashes, and appliances with a one year warranty from Best Buy.

But medical insurance is not the same as those other kinds of insurances. Every single human being on this planet needs health care, whether it's an annual checkup every year until they die of old age at 120 without ever having caught a cold, to leukemia.

As such, it should be 1. mandatory that people are covered and 2. mandatory that insurance companies agree to cover them. It's not mandatory for me to have hurricane insurance in the mountains of North Georgia, because the odds of a hurricane making it this far inland at full strength are lower than me dying in a plane crash. It's not mandatory for me to have car insurance if I don't own a car. It's not mandatory for me to have life insurance, although it'd be nice to make sure that legal and funeral costs are covered in case the unexpected happens.

And right now it's not mandatory for people to have health insurance, because half the time when they try to get it outside of their place of employment, they get turned down because they've had bad acne since they were 13!

So we eliminate recission (the practice of denying healthcare because of pre-existing conditions), or we offer a public option and let health insurance companies keep on recissioning people to stay profitable. Then we can require people to have health insurance from the day they are born until the day they die.

I meant that outside of achieving its explicitly stated objective it does not attempt--to a significant degree--to further any other cause, party, or philosophy.

I haven't read enough of the history of WHO to make an informed objection, but I've yet to come across any information where the WHO has engage in activities irrelevant to its objective. Every time the organization pops up in an article I read they're doing something related to health. I probably need to become better informed.

Are you asserting that insurance offers only or primarily a psychological benefit?

Edited, Jul 14th 2009 5:52pm by Allegory

Yes, but humanity isn't a colonial organism. Of course the cost of a risk to me multiplied by the probability of the risk is less than the cost insurance I'm paying for it, and thus when aggregated you could say society loses money. But as an individual I can't take some of those hits. You can't simply aggregate all the costs and gains.

If I'm small business owner who has invested most of my money into a factory, then it's not purely a psychological benefit for me to buy insurance on that factory. If I lose my factory I lose my livelihood.

You may not like this analogy, but I lack the articulation to put it another way. If life is an MMORPG, then insurance is a tank with straight armor damage reduction (25%) and not buying insurance is a dodge tank (30%). Yes, in order for insurance companies to profit I have to average a loss. With a armor damage reduction tank I average less mitigation than a dodge tank, but I'm safe from being one-shotted in certain situations. The inability to be one-shot is worth the cost of lower average mitigation.

Some risks are unacceptable. Insurance is a way to manage unacceptable risks and can offer a very real benefit to an individual. Putting the money I would pay to insurance companies in a savings account averages greater wealth, but it doesn't protect me against being one shot. If I lose a relatively large amount of money by accident, then I'm screwed.

If you had a disease with a 1 in 4 chance of being fatal (but otherwise you are perfectly healthy) and were offered a treatment that would definitely cure it though you would only function at half capacity, would it be stupid to take the treatment that averages you worse physical condition?

Edited, Jul 14th 2009 6:37pm by Allegory

Unacceptable is when the cost of a risk moves beyond the capacity of an individual to absorb it, though that can actually be a spectrum. It's when the ratio of marginal cost to marginal change abruptly skyrockets.

Losing all my assets is not merely twice as bad as losing half my assets. The situation is exemplified in most games where hitting zero is vastly different from almost hitting zero. Losing all your chips in poker is not merely one chip worse than losing all but one chip (ignoring antes). In an MMORPG the tank losing 99% of his hp isn't only 1% better than losing 100% of his hp. Unfortunately life situations aren't as easily quantifiable, but almost losing my life or almost losing my sole source of income are much different than entirely losing either.

I can accept that the majority of people utilize insurance incorrectly, but it seems to me that you are asserting that it is impossible to derive any concrete benefit from the system ever.

I'm not basing my objection to incestuous marriage on morals. Perhaps your objection to same sex marriage is, and that could be the problem. Incestous releationships can produce genetic abnormalities. Generally incestuous behavior is associated with mental health issues. It is usually forced by one of the individuals involved. If a couple that were related closer than 2nd cousin, could show just cause, demonstrated that they were in a loving, monogomous relationship, and agreed not to procreate, they could be allowed to marry. Somehow I think the numbers on this scenario would be miniscule.



1) NOBODY is requiring you to support them. My wife, children and my neighbors are gainfully employed and insured and pay more in taxes than we will ever receive in terms of government benefits.
2) Are you arguing AGAINST abortion because having aborions would cause you to have to support babies? Seriously?


Please quote the portion of any proposed health care reform law that give the government access to personal medical records? You flat out make **** up to be pissed off about to support your position.

How isn't this a moral objection?

The only ways I can really figure are that you're either putting the genetic survival of the species above the (ostensible) rights of the related parents to have their children, or that you're putting the happiness and well being of the child, who will most likely be retarded, over the ostensible "rights" of the parents.

I ask because honestly I'm torn myself. I don't have any moral objection to relations ******* each other, but it's difficult for me to devise some way to tell them that they shouldn't procreate, without either delving into eugenics or worse, advocating for the rights of a baby that's not even born.

Me: Incestous releationships can produce genetic abnormalities.

Varus: So can regular relationships.

You're being obtuse. I'll clarify. Incestuous progeny suffer from a significantly increased risk of genetic abnormalities.



Me: Generally incestuous behavior is associated with mental health issues

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Varus: So is homosexuality.

Please provide proof to that assertion.



Me: It is usually forced by one of the individuals involved.

Varus: And you know this based on what?

see links above



Me: If a couple that were related closer than 2nd cousin, could show just cause, demonstrated that they were in a loving, monogomous relationship, and agreed not to procreate, they could be allowed to marry.

Varus: Why should an incestuous couple have any less rights regarding procreation than any other couple? Isn't that discrimination based on their personal lifestyle choice?

So you think incestuous couples should be able to marry but not homosexuals? Or are you now in favor of same sex marriage?



Me: Somehow I think the numbers on this scenario would be miniscule.

Varus: While the numbers of lasting monogamous homosexual relationships are high? <sarcasm>

It's all relative. Some estimates show the homosexual population at around 2-3% with over 10% of people having significant homosexual activity. Even 2-3% is millions of people. Consentual incest is far more rare. So rare that reliable data is difficult to find.




Me: 1) NOBODY is requiring you to support them. My wife, children and my neighbors are gainfully employed and insured and pay more in taxes than we will ever receive in terms of government benefits.

Varus: Every time I go to the grocery store and see a girl with two or more kids on her arm pulling out that food stamps card I'm reminded of who my tax dollars are supporting.

One more time. I said keep your God out of my wife's uterus referring to abortion laws, and you countered with not wanting to support babies. Explain to me how having an abortion will cause you to support babies.



Me: Are you arguing AGAINST abortion because having aborions would cause you to have to support babies? Seriously?

Varus: Does that even sound right to you? I'm against abortion because I think life begins at conception and until we learn to value life as a society we're going to keep producing members in society who think it's ok to sleep with whoever they want whenever they want without dealing with the repercussions. It's all about personal responsibilities. Granted the sole exception to this would be in rape cases. Those women were not given a choice therefore they shouldn't have to face the consequences of what happened to them.

I'm glad you believe this. My views are very similar. But the last time I checked neither you nor I are in fact, God. So I choose to let someone else decide what is right for them and let them face the consequences from God (if any). You seem to think that passing laws outlawing something that YOU believe to be wrong, yet the majority think is okay, is a good thing. I do not. I don't belive that you can legislate morality.

Agree



Disagree



Agree: they should be, so long as we can prohibit abuse.

But the mental illness part is ridiculous.

Blusc

Incest isn't a damn mental illness. I read your links: First of all, those articles talk about parent child incest relationships, which were all @#%^philiac incest,(also debatably not a mental illness,) which is a grievous conflation of issues, and did not seem to talk about the much not the much more appealing cousin, brother sister, or second cousin relationships among two approximately same age people. So no, you have not shown incest to be a mental illness, though you have shown that raping children which happens to be incestual, is traumatic to the child. I wonder why.


Don't you think this works both ways? Societal acceptance is imperative in allowing someone to form relationships no? When society doesn't accept homosexuality; it's a legitimate mental disorder, but when they reached a point where they could be accepted more, it's no longer a behaviorally defined illness.

Yes, no?

Edited, Jul 15th 2009 11:20am by Pensive

Yes of course, but that's the same for heterosexual sex. If you get raped you might very well have a mental health issue: heterosexual, homosexual, whatever. **** Anna I have mental health issues from only having had communed with one lady.

Shouldn't we have to at least isolate incest among two consenting adults just as we did for homosexuality? In order to consider whe there there is something inherent in incest that causes mental health issues, then how best to contain the abuse of sex just like we do in every other accepted sexuality.