Re: of plague dogs and cryonics

>>>Why? Vision and teeth are useful things. They're pretty important to the > quality of life of the person who needs glasses and dentures. Do you
> really think that having children is a similar quality of life issue?
> <<
> COMMENT:
> For many people (of course not all), the answer is "absolutely." People
> may suffer terribly if they want children and can't conceive. Geez,
> what planet are you posting from?
>>Lots of people suffer terribly because their noses are too big, too
small, too crooked, women suffer terribly because their breasts are too

small, men suffer terribly because they are balding....do we pay for
those kinds of procedures? Life's not fair. <<


COMMENT:

Well, so long as we're being towers of compassion, you can make the
same remark about dysfunction of any organ system, so long as not
life-threatening. Hey, life's not fair. Your hormones or your genes
might doom you to be four feet tall, but hey, you might be an otherwise
reasonably healthy four feet tall. Why should the state pay for growth
hormone for you? Learn to sing "We represent the Lollypop Guild..."
Or the Lullabye League, as your sex dictates.

As for cosmetic surgery, medicaid varies in coverage. In many states
you can get cosmetic surgery to fix deformities resulting from trauma,
but not any that you're born with. I don't know if they make
exceptions for cleft palate, but maybe not. You might suffer and
whistle a lot, but you'll survive. Bald people suffer also, as you
point out? I suppose they had to draw the line somewhere, but it
escapes me why a lump or defect or malformation you're born with should
be any different than one you acquired from being run over by a car. Or
even from aging.

But we have gotten off on a tangent, with the state-funded procedures.
Originally the ethicists objected even to IVF for people who wanted to
pay for it out of pocket. The "ethicists" wanted to meddle, even there.
Or course, it being the UK that did this first, the "ethicists" could
hardly distinguish between private and social payment for medical
procedures. The distinction being nearly invisible to them
intellectually.

>>Some people can't have children. There are many children who need homes. Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to bring people who want children but can't have
them together with childrten who need homes instead of performing an
expensive, sometimes risky medical procedure?

COMMENT:

And there are people who don't make enough saliva, and people who make
too much. If we could only get them together they could be very happy.
Except for some prejudices.

COMMENT:
>>Of course that would mean that the lawyers get the money instead of the doctors and the medical establishment.... <<

Indeed, the other problem. These children "who need homes" are
protected by gaggles of people who want exorbitant ransoms for them,
while all the time they are aging uncared-for into unadoptable
unsocializability. This happens with humans exactly as with kittens.
And with humans as with kittens it seems to be a problem everywhere,
but it's not a MEDICAL problem. Your comment is like saying "Why do we
spend all that money to do brain surgery on people shot in the head
during gang fights or robberies, when it would be much better to teach
people not to be gangers or robbers?" Medicine must deal with what
rolls or walks through the door.

>>So you choose the procedures you cover very carefully and don't cover procedures that have little or not social value and no medical value at all. <<

God, are you another Canadian or Brit? I can smell their socialism and
need to meddle democratically in other people's lives. It's like a bad
odor. The better answer, with most of medicine, and except for very
extreme cases and emergencies, is to allow people to choose *for
themselves* individually what has "social value" and "medical value."
Since this differs concept differs from person to person (a newsflash
for you). And to allow people to chose with their pocketbooks, if they
have any money at all. Otherwise somebody else has to do it FOR them,
and your candidate for who makes those decisions would be...? Do YOU
want the job? Your local genius politicians? The doctors? No, you
really don't want any of those groups. I hope.

> That depends on what you mean by "great deal." Half? Three-quarters?
> 90%? We have no examples of societies with long life spans and low
> tech, to go on. They all have turned out to be myths.
>>Your assumption that a long life span is a good thing needs to be examined first. <<

COMMENT:

Not for long. I know very well that long life is a marker for healthy
life, since it's very difficult to get unhealthy and ill people to live
long. So the two go together, and cannot be separated. Much as
utopians would like to.

As for the INTRINSIC value of long life, I will say what I always say
to deathists (people who argue for the goodness of early death), and
that is "You first, bub."

SBH

.

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