New new election thread

[Good Old Neon]

Bobbob1313: (written like that your handle looks positively biblical)

 

I'm going to defer to Ikol here, because he's like, a doctor or a wizard, or something like that. Either way, he knows.

 

I

[sweetheart-mine]

I find it hilarious that the Candidate preaching change is chosing the ultimate Washington insider to be his running mate. And you thing McCain is a hothead...Biden is a real handler flyer.

"THE ultimate washington insider"? uh, slight exaggeration. come on, he's got a hell of a lot of competition for that label. if some governor with zero washington experience had been chosen, we'd never hear the end of that either. all things considered, still looks like a good choice to me. i don't care who's more of a hothead. biden has a brain in his, and it seems to function a good percentage of the time. wouldn't want to speculate on mccain's percentage, but it seems to sink more nearly every day. so laugh away.

[bobbob1313]

I

[bobbob1313]

JNick, that analogy works better if it is something like this:

 

Street racers wraps his car around a pole, gets care, and then gets a new car and continues to street race.

 

Driving normally is kind of like breathing in oxygen, in this analogy. You could get hurt from it (pollen or smog or some shit,) but you aren't putting yourself at any higher risk than you have to. Breathing in smoke, then, is like racing down a 2 lane road on a wet night.

[ikol]

so, with your argument Ikol, if someone has a fat insurance policy, but continues to smoke(or whatever) it's okay for them to drain insurance companies of their money because they paid into it?

 

I mean, of course, it's ridiculous when people continue to smoke, drink, etc when those things threaten their health, treatment, etc.......but it sounds like you're only angry with poor/uninsured people who do it.

 

Even with insurance, someone else essentially is footing the majority of the bill with those huge procedures - i.e. all of those people who pay in, and don't get sick......So, do insured people owe it to the other insured people to take better care of themselves?

 

I'd just like a clarification of your argument.

 

 

Yes and no. It's not okay in the sense that they are unnecessarily jeopardizing their health. The fact that they are at least making some sort of payment (and if I owned an insurance company, I would require smokers to pay higher premiums) and thus burdening others less, makes it less "not okay" than those whose care is completely paid for by others. I'm not looking to ban smoking; I don't even think it should be banned in 'public' places (such as privately owned businesses). But I do think people should be more responsible for their own health.

 

Just to clarify, is it your view that if someone is sick due to their own lifestyle choices, whether in the past or right up to today, that if they are too poor to pay for treatment, they should be left to die?

 

No, but they should be expected to make some sort of payment even if they initially get the healthcare without paying. Maybe pay the hospital $4 a day instead of buying a pack of cigarettes.

 

 

You put yourself at great risk every time you find yourself in an automobile, should those who find themselves in the hospital due to an auto accident be viewed similarly as someone who smokes and/or eats poorly contributing to their own heart disease or stroke? What does it say of those who recover from a serious auto accident only to find themselves willingly driven away from the hospital in the same contraption that led to their hospitalization - and perhaps back again to seek further rehabilitation? It would be foolish to compare smoking to driving, as smoking is certainly not a necessity, but like driving, another modifiable risk factor (there are much safer alternatives to driving, biking or walking being two of them, both of which improve fitness and cardiovascular health - and since a high percentage of accidents occur within several miles of home, it is not unreasonable to expect that biking or walking are both perfectly reasonable alternatives), ingesting nutritionally deficient foods is often a necessity born out of being poor - as anyone who has visited a grocery store lately can attest to, eating well does not come on the cheap.

 

Perhaps we should charge a higher rate for automobile drivers as well - and view them with scorn whenever they return to the hospital via automobile? My guess is that many people who are being treated for lung cancer continue to smoke not because they are stupid or irresponsible (not to mention addicted), but because, like it or not, it brings them some degree of joy, especially in light of the fact that they themselves know their situation is dire.

 

I

[Wendy]

This slow day (Saturday) seems like a good time to close this more-than-50-page thread.

 

Someone can start a NEW New new election thread.

 

We'll leave this one with the last big news of the day: