[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Damien Sullivan]

On Sat, Jan 26, 2008 at 08:46:53AM -0500, MB wrote:
> 
> > The idea is that if you get sick and need expensive medical treatment,
> > the government will pay for it out of the taxes it collects, just as
> > it pays for the police and the armed forces. [...]
> >
> 
> The US gvt already does this, although the rest of the world seems not
> to believe.

As I put it, the United States already has universal health care; it
just has a particularly expensive and ineffective version thereof,
through the mandate that emergency rooms not turn anyone away.  Though
paid for not so much through taxes (except for public hospitals) as
through high bills and thus high insurance premiums for the rest of us.

So the real choice is to muddle along, switch to a cheaper and more
explicit universal system as done by every other developed country
except for South Africa (done in many ways, from a government run system
like Britain -- or our VA -- to government paid like Canada or our
Medicare, to some system of mandated coverage) or remove the mandate and
let people die in the streets.

-xx- Damien X-)