It's About Time Astronauts Got Healthcare For Life (mashable.com)

Miriam Kramer, reporting for Mashable: NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria flew to space four times for the space agency between 1995 and 2007. While in space, his eyesight deteriorated, a well-documented medical issue NASA's known about for years, and one that many astronauts have experienced first-hand. For many astronauts, their eyesight readjusts once they get back to Earth. That wasn't the case for Lopez-Alegria, though. His eyesight got significantly worse during his time in orbit, and NASA isn't paying for his contacts or doctor visits today, years after his retirement from the agency. However, he still travels to Houston, Texas once per year to allow the agency to gather data about his health, without any expectation that NASA will offer treatment for any conditions that may have developed because of his time in space. In other words, while Lopez-Alegria's eyesight deteriorates, NASA benefits from the data he provides to the American space program, without medical recompense to him today. The lack of health care for former astronauts has long been a sore spot at NASA, but now it threatens the agency's future. Deep space missions beyond the moon, like a mission to Mars, require a better understanding of how extended spaceflight affects the human body.

Comments

Tough shit -- welcome to the real world

[Anonymous Coward]

How many occupations have health side-effects? Thousands. You are just one of many, bub. Get in line. You aren't special.

Re:Tough shit -- welcome to the real world

[Areyoukiddingme]

Not to mention if we choose as a society to pay together, it can be a lit cheaper for everyone. Currently we collectively pay 4 times as much per person as any other country and we have a lot less to show for it.

Those of us who do have health insurance might actually pay less under a universal healthcare system than we do now even while covering other people.

That only happens in other countries because other countries have come to grips with the fact that running a healthcare system for profit is not merely inefficient, but immoral. The US doesn't understand that.

Which is kind of peculiar, because the US healthcare system was largely non-profit for most people for most of the history of the country. Why do you think all these hospitals all over the country have the names of saints in them? Well, today it's because of marketing. Calling them Uncle Bob's Chop Shop and Surgery Emporium just doesn't have quite the same ring. But originally it was because they were charity hospitals. Not just non-profit, but literally free to the majority of the recipients. They were founded and run by church organizations, especially the monetary behemoth that is the Catholic Church.

Other countries pay much much less because other countries have determined how much each and every drug costs to make, how much each and every procedure costs to perform, and how much each and every machine costs to make, and dictated the amount that will be paid for each of those things. And drug manufacturers, hospitals, and equipment manufacturers manage to get along just fine. They just don't get to rake in record profits every year. Oh, and they can almost completely avoid the monstrous parasitic growth that the US suffers from known as the health insurance industry: that most ridiculous organization whose sole purpose is to prevent healthcare.

Healthcare in the US started as a charity and somehow evolved into a mammoth profit-taking entity and there is no way back for us, ever, because of the first italicized word in my preceding paragraph. Because the only way out is to use government for its intended purpose, "to promote the general welfare" as it says in the Constitution, but we can't do that because "muh freedums!" And because of the root of this entire thread, still reflected in the comment subject: "Re: Tough shit -- welcome to the real world", which translates with ease as "Fuck you -- I got mine".

So Christian, these Americans... Like Jesus said in the Bible, "Fuck you, I got mine."

Please stop the hyperbole

[SuperKendall]

I totally agree that NASA should pay for the most top-notch healthcare for life for all astronauts. There are not many and they deserve it for the risks they take and the benefits we all gain...

However this line is absurd:

"now it threatens the agency's future"

No, no it does not. Even if NASA shot all astronauts on retirement there would still be a healthy supply of overqualified candidates for flying in space.

I wish people would stop weakening perfectly good arguments by trying to lace them with drama.

It is almost like 32/33 developed countries...

[netsavior]

It's weird that 32 out of the 33 developed countries in the world consider healthcare to be an important right of citizenship. But that 33rd country, they don't even believe in it for national heroes, soldiers, or public servants.

It's almost like the cognitive dissonance exists at a fundamental level such that no progress can be made.

Re:It is almost like 32/33 developed countries...

[Mab_Mass]

If you will change the constitution and will include the healthcare as a right, why don't you throw in free life time education, free housing, free food.

That all sounds like a great idea to me.

My guess is that it would cost a tiny fraction compared to the costs of the US having a larger military than the next several countries combined.

Re:Universal healthcare would fix this

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how great "it seems" but I live in Canada, and it's quite good.

World-class treatment of any major problem, with modest or no delay.

The only real downside is that if you have a non-urgent problem (nasty head cold, road rash from a bike accident, etc.) you could wait 4-5 hours for service. Similarly, if you have to schedule a non-urgent treatment, such as imaging or surgery, but there is no life-threatening condition or rapid deterioration, it could take from a few weeks to a few months to get service.

It's no panacea, but it's good. We still buy private coverage for dental, eye care, private rooms in hospitals (versus the free shared rooms) and drugs.

But you never bring your check book, or worry about coverage. Nobody is turned away, nobody is bankrupted, and the cost of coverage does not dissuade employers from hiring people.

Re:National Health System

[fahrbot-bot]

... they would get free health care.

Well... "free" as in "tax payer funded".

Personally, I would like to see some level of tax-funded national/universal "basic" (or catastrophic) health care/insurance with additional coverage available via the private insurance market.