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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (709521)	10/28/2005 5:15:30 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

LOL! What does insurance regulation have to do with treatment of illnesses medically (vs. the alternative of criminalizing behavior)? But, to consider you comments anyway: [medical issues are best dealt with medically] "So would it then be legal for insurers to exclude coverage for emphysema if an insured smoked marijuana (for example)?" Hopefully the legality of any particular corporate action in this area would follow the ACTUAL SCIENCE. At the moment, there is little to no medical evidence that use of marijuana promotes emphysema (unlike tobacco, which clearly does), and more then a little evidence to indicate exactly the opposite... since the active ingredients in marijuana RELAX the air sacs in the lungs (whereas nicotine constricts the air sacs and passageways...), and thus are currently being investigated in various labs as a potential treatment for emphysema and asthma. Of course, no reputable physician would ever encourage anyone to BURN and inhale ANYTHING (but burning is not necessary for use of marijuana...). "If they did, would it become a Medicare problem for an already overburdened system?" As I have illustrated above, your hypothesis is just that... a hypothesis as yet unsupported by any facts. So, to extrapolate as to whether marijuana would increase the costs to Medicare seems fanciful... indeed you ignore the offsetting possibility that --- to the extent that expensive patented drugs might be replaced in certain treatment regimes by low or no-cost marijuana derived treatments... costs might conceivably FALL.