Not knowing the average age of posters I'm willing to bet it's somewhere around 30. Well I'm almost 60 and I can tell you that health care used to be cheap. A doctor's visit was $8 and insurance cost me around $30/month but most people didn't need it because we were more fit back then.

So what happened? In one word I'll tell you. Government!

First the government mandated that employers provide insurance to their employees. The insurance companies loved this since it brought them more customers. The side effect however was that having insurance meant that instead of simply putting a band-aid on it people went to the doctor or the emergency room and the insurance company got billed. Higher demand and assurance of payment meant that doctors and hospitals could raise fees. Higher costs forced up insurance rates. Unfortunately the higher costs put more burden on people with fixed incomes and the poor. And lets not forget the unions hand in all of this.

So government created Medicare and Medicaid.

This was fucking great for the doctors, hospitals and even the insurance companies. Doctors and hospitals could charge more for their services and the insurance companies could raise their rates. More money running through the insurance companies means more cash flow, always a good thing.

Meanwhile people began to believe that medical care was a right and not something you had to pay for. The disconnecting of the cost-benefit ratio was removed from the consumer and thrust into the hands of Insurance companies and faceless bureaucrats.

Things went along like that with ever increasing costs and more demands for government to do something. So in order to get elected the knotheads in congress made more poorly thought-out laws. They kept getting elected by knothead voters. And so it goes.

So now, not only is medical care extremely expensive but the government will now force everyone to buy insurance even if they are young and strong and don't need it.

And the costs WILL go up.

Cost cutting won't work and will result in less quality and less availability. Even more of the costs will be taken up by paper(computer)work. I do consulting for a large medical clinic and about 1/3 or more of the staff have nothing to do with providing health care. Their jobs are exclusively doing the work necessary to bill the insurance companies or the government for payment. The billing costs so much that people with no insurance at all get a greatly reduced rate for care.

So everybody, despite all of the assurances from the news parrots and government lackeys, costs WILL go up and taxes WILL go up to pay for it. Either taxes will go up or the debt will go up. My guess is both will go up. Increases in taxes and debt are unsustainable and eventually lenders will stop lending and taxpayers won't be able to pay.

I hear the economy in Argentina is improving.

In the case of taking samples from infants or others incapable of giving consent the rule should be that their property rights should be protected. One doesn't steal candy from babies. Although there may be a case of liability if parents fail to take care of their infants by getting blood tests that still doesn't invalidate the property rights of the child. There have been cases where a sibling was conceived for the express purpose of making that child a donor. this is wrong for the very same reason. A person's body is his/her property and just because a person can't legally consent to having part of his body taken doesn't make it ok for his guardian to do it.

My body is mine. The products of my body are mine. I can sell body parts or rent my body as I see fit.

Laws which violate this principle, even if it's for the person's own good are wrong. An exception of course is made for infants or incompetents to ensure their good health but then using them or their parts for other purposes is wrong.

It's really a simple principal of property rights.

I was speaking about right vs wrong and not strictly legal issues although why the two should be separate issues I cannot say.

Just because courts have decided that some practices are legal doesn't make them right morally or ethically.

In the past courts have decided that certain people had no legal right to their own bodies at all. This was called slavery.

Taking a body part without permission is wrong even if it is legal.

Edwin

You are wrong. When a person discards human waste, hair, nail, urine, feces, saliva, blood, cancer cells or whatever there is no legal expectation of privacy or property as you say. However when a tissue sample is given there is an expectation that it will be used ONLY for the purpose for which it was given. Any other use without the explicit permission of the owner is wrong and should be prohibited.

If a person drinks from a soda can and then discards that can then any DNA on the can, assuming traceability, can be used in a criminal case but if the person keeps the can then discards it without traceability then it cannot.

In the case of whether a doctor would need permission for a tissue sample to be entered into a database or some other and especially commercial use would be clear. A person's tissue is his property and cannot be used for purposes other than what he has explicitly permitted. In the case of the cancer patient you mentioned her body would become property of her estate and any use commercial or otherwise would need to be approved by the patient's heirs. If profits are made from a tissue sample then the heirs are entitled to royalties.

The idea of negative effects upon society by enforcing privacy and property rights are simply well, socialistic.

Edwin

It isn't that we have less privacy. It is that the information about us is now much more accessible. Computers and databases along with marketing droids and NSA/CIA/KGB(homeland security) needs demand that as much data be compiled as possible for use by whomever wants it for a price. In the past compiling such huge databases just wasn't practical. It wasn't because the data wasn't out there but it was in the form of paper in files but not on computer media. Now everything is digitized and available at a moments notice.

If you want privacy, or at least more of it there are steps you can take which make personal data harder to get in the first place but unless you live in a cave in the middle of the desert with no communication or interaction with other humans you will never achieve total privacy.

UH,NO. Cutting CO2 emissions is enormously costly. CO2 is a trace gas of which human action contributes about 3% the balance of which comes from natural sources. Further the ice core evidence that AGW supporters cite is outdated by finer analysis that show the increase in CO2 levels actually happened AFTER periods of warming.

CO2 is essential to plant life. It is neither advantageous nor is it advisable to reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Because the human caused contribution to atmospheric CO2 is so low (3%) there is scant evidence for any increase of CO2 levels in the air. Plant life does an excellent job of reducing CO2 in the air and any increase simply spurs plant growth slightly which is usually desirable. Natural sources of CO2 account for 97% of all CO2 that is emitted into the Air yet we see very little evidence to indicate any AGW at all. The hypothesis that there would be positive feedback of any increase in CO2 has absolutely no basis in fact and there is zero evidence that this has happened here or elsewhere. If it does happen where is the evidence that it has happened in the past? There should be wild swings detectable in the ice cores and tree rings etc... but the evidence is missing or data has outright been falsified.

The AGW hypothesis is just that. An hypothesis without any observed data to support it is NOT a theory. It is a hypothesis quite the same as the existence of God is a hypothesis. It depends on faith in the absence of verifiable data.

So my answer to AGW faithful is PROVE IT with verifiable data. SO far they refuse to do so and instead cook what data they have in order to prove their hypothesis. A valid theory however is used in an attempt to explain observed data. This is the scientific method. The tail does not wag the dog.

Edwin

Tritium decays by beta emission to Helium-3 which isn't radioactive. The beta particle (electron) is of such low energy that it won't even penetrate the dead layer of skin. It is much less dangerous than the radioactive potassium humans have evolved with in their bodies. It is more of an extremely rare and valuable curiosity than any danger it poses. But of course the uneducated public has been propagandized into believing that anything that's radioactive is dangerous and causes cancer so groups like Greenpeace get to make headlines.

Check it out at Wikipedia like I did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

It's unconstitutional because of the Interstate Commerce Clause in the federal constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_commerce_clause

It's what stops states from taxing the citizens in another state among other things. This is a tax on the free trade of electric power between Minnesota and North Dakota which congress has prohibited via the ICC.