[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Sat Jan 26 19:43:13 UTC 2008


MB writes

>> 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.
> 
> Personal experience: friend with nothing - no job, no savings, no income - becomes
> ill and goes to the local Health Department...

A friend of mine was treated similarly.  Ray was quite a character.  He hated
work and hated any other imposition on his personal freedom. Just about the
only thing that he could stand doing that was at all that was renumerative was
playing cards, at which he got pretty good.  Ray loved games, and I have no
idea of what would have become of him had there been no market for his
skills at the poker table.

Even then, literally, his goal was to work as little as possible.  His boss would
beg him to come in and work several days a week, but Ray would figure out
how to get by on one day, or two at most.  He spent the rest of his time 
hanging out with friends or reading news magazines in his apartment.

He collapsed one day while in the bathroom and woke up hours later to
discover that his leg and foot were extremely painful. As he sometimes did,
he had a friend take him to the emergency clinic. Of course there was no
question of payment since Ray usually had to borrow money just to make rent.

The doctors sedated him, and after a few weeks of semi-consciousness he
awoke to discover that his foot had been removed. 

Back in his apartment a week later he received a bill for $300,000.  Ray
just laughed at the total absurdity.  I concur.  Can't you just see all those
doctors dropping in on him day after day, each of them jotting a few notes
and billing the state of Nevada some outrageous amount no matter how
quick and pointless the visit?

About six months later Ray awoke one day to rather severe internal pain
(I forget where). It required another visit to the clinic. Again, his friends
relate that he was in the hospital for a period of weeks. The bill this time
was for another $300,000 which surely also amused Ray greatly, though
being as happy-go-lucky as he always was, most things amused him.
(I really did envy him his disposition and ability to look on the bright side.)

He visited me some time after this, driving in from Reno in a beat-up old
Cadillac that he wanted to sell me. He hobbled in on his crutches, plopped
himself down on an easy chair, and it struck me what an intelligent (though
very uncultivated) visage old Ray had. We had some good talks just as
in the old days, him the inveterate socialist who was not very good at 
concealing his envy of the rich, and me the die-hard libertarian. He
exulted in fixing us dinner, and persuaded me to buy Roy Walford's
"The Anti-Aging Plan" and "The 120 Year Diet", both of which he
was great fans of.

He had plans, and had found out that there was a state program that
was possibly going to buy him an artificial foot. He sincerely believed
that with his new foot he'd be up and about, and could perhaps finally
bring to fruition one of his sport-betting get rich quick schemes.

I dropped him off at the bus station, just a little worried about him
traveling alone.  But Ray knew how to take care of himself. I called
him a few days later in Reno and he'd had a good return trip. That
was the last time we spoke.

Two weeks later Ray's brother called me and told me that Ray had
had to make one more trip to the emergency clinic.  It turned out
that this time, so the story goes, they weren't able to locate some
internal bleeding that he was suffering from, and he died.

I can't help but wonder whether "the system" was just not prepared
to pay out yet another $300,000 for poor Ray. It seems quite possible
that if you or I had displayed the same symptoms and had shown up
at that same clinic the outcome would have been different. 

I think that it's too bad that we don't have a free market in health
care, so that it could cater to poor people too. Sure, they would
not receive the same level of care as those of us in the middle do,
but hell, no one I know can get the care that the very rich or
important commonly obtain---and that's something that will never
change, no matter what.

Lee




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