What obviously has to go is that health insurance is tied to a job. Apart from losing insurance altogether, the switching of doctors isn’t exactly wonderful either. I wonder if this is another uniquely American idiocy. I certainly hadn’t thought such a thing to be possible. Now, if Apple had a healthcare branch, we could talk.

You assume wrong. I’ve met many and they have made their views clear.

I think everyone gets that your subtext in these kinds of comments is, “I was very deeply offended by what many pro-lifers said about Obama supporters during the last election, and as a result I’ve decided that most pro-lifers are hateful people and refuse to call myself one.”

The thing is, applying this as a subtext to lots of passive aggressive statements is actually not any more interesting than if you repeated it explicitly all the time. I think that most of us get what you’re saying, and perhaps even sympathize just a tiny bit (after all, I have plenty of people assure me that I hate the poor, blacks, Palestinians, sick people, etc. because of my political commitments, so I’m used to unjustified hyperbole) but the pity party is a bit much. You’re better and smarter than that.

If I am around in a few years, I will be living proof that they don’t kill off the old, the sick, and the elderly!

Wait a few years, then get back to me.

BA,

I was (of course) joking, but it does seem to me that the fact that so small a number of people account for such a large percentage of health-care spending is a relevant fact. I am not exactly sure what to make of it, though. Should government-sponsored health care or private insurance cover expensive procedures that don’t significantly prolong life? As I said above, cost is one of the factors in Catholic thought that is considered when deciding what constitutes “extraordinary measures” to prolong life.

You have every right to make those assumptions that seem accurate or likely to you, and to behave accordingly. And I have the same right.

Particularly when you consider that the people who would be managing any greater government involvement in healthcare in the US are the same people who vote for “voluntary” euthanasia laws, who appoint federal judges that hold it unconstitutional for states to restrict voluntary suicide, etc.

I don’t say this often, Kurt, but I think you’re lying.

Yes and yes (okay, so “everything” is perhaps a bit strong, but I do think limiting government intervention in the provision of healthcare to something closer to the level of intervention in the provision of food would be a good thing).

Doesn’t Obama’s plan to kill the sick, the elderly, and the disabled make great sense once you realize how expensive these people are?

I assume that you are joking here, but this sort of thing really does scare me. When I look at the numbers, it seems quite clear that the government is not going to pay for amount of healthcare for which it has already agreed to provide (let alone all that the government will be promising to provide if Obama has his way). Given the state of our culture, I fully expect a lot of people to start seeing euthanasia as a good cost cutting measure.

If you were elected president, what would be your approach to health care?

Bearing in mind that the president is not a dictator who can just pass whatever he wants, I laid out some of my ideas on the issue in this post. Some alternative proposals that I find interesting are described here, and here.