Socialized Health Care in the USA

[--Pete]

Hi,

I said chaotic, I meant chaotic.

OK, but I'm not sure that 'chaotic' means what you think it does.

. . . something we should be doing out of simple risk aversion, playing as we are with the one and only known inhabitable biosphere in the universe.

Yes. But at what cost? And how much do we budget for some kind of safety system to protect us from asteroid impact (how much would the dinosaurs have paid?)? What about coverage for an extensive bout of volcanism? How about stockpiling drugs against the mutation of Ebola into an airborne form? A cereal crop virus which destroys our crop base?

To paraphrase Agent K: "There's always an alien battle cruiser, or a Corellian death ray, or an intergalactic plague intended to wipe out life on this miserable little planet. The only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they do not get taxed to death to prevent it!"

In this case, we could be speaking of a cost that is more than money. We're speaking of a cost in terms of loss of standard of living for *everyone*. Lowered for the industrial nations to mild discomfort. Lowered, in some places below that which sustains life. And lowered hopes and expectations for those coming out of poverty. To pay that full price, for a danger that is imperfectly known and is based on models that are, at best, primitive, is foolish or worse.

As I've said before, there are environmental concerns that do not depend on "then a miracle occurs" models.

--Pete