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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: spiral3 who wrote (51694)	3/5/2008 7:30:53 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 542201

In which case I see no reason to compromise my premise. You started out with: "There are just very few people on the planet consuming health care goods and services for the heck of it or because they happen to be easily and readily available. " Now you are saying that, if "the majority" of people don't do that, your premise stands. Well, "just a few" is a long way from the "majority." People primarily seek health care when they are ill or fearful that they are becoming ill I can see from your profile that you are not yet at the age where you go around either ill or fearful of becoming ill. I recently spent some months with my father in a retirement community. That description covers everyone every day. Those folks are big consumers. I go to my pool every day where the most common topic of chatter is health. I suggest that you may be generalizing from your own experience and missing the demographic of big-time consumers. The need for a heart bypass op is categorically different to the need for a vacuum cleaner. Indeed. So, it should be clear now that lack of overconsumption will not, in itself, stand as the rationale for differentiating health care from all else. You may have identified a kernel of that differentiation--not bad for a first cut--but you haven't sufficiently differentiated. We can't reasonably make a determination that the government should provide something to everyone simply because that something isn't routinely over-consumed. Your proposed rationale at the very least is not yet ready for prime time.