Let the insurers actually compete, and you can cover everyone while letting innovation flourish.
No "for profit" insurance company will ever offer insurance to "undesirables", no matter how fierce the competition. That's the major flaw of this plan.
I don't buy it because I consider insurance cowardly, thus immoral.
Being not able to compensate other people for saving your life... I'd say that's immoral. And unless you've got eight-figure savings, there's always cases that can leave you unable to pay the bill out of pocket.
It's just like car insurance. The average person can cause much, much more damage with their car than they'll ever be able to repay. Should their victims be stuck with the damage just because that person was such a tough guy and didn't take out insurance ?
The degree of the illness is not relevant, because the same decisions must be made in any case.
For most people, "Just die", "Spend the next 10 years in excruciating pain and then die", "Become increasingly paralyzed over the next 15 years and then starve to death", and the like, are not acceptable options in a decision-finding process, even if they appear perfectly rational to anyone who's sufficiently sociopathic.
Funny how in your world, diseases are either (rapidly) terminal or merely annoying. Too bad that in the real world, most of them are somewhere in between these two extremes. Quite a few won't kill you, but will leave you permanently disabled, for example. There's pretty much every degree of nastiness out there.
You will, of course, be taking steps to blatantly and flagrantly violate these stupid rules, won't you?
No no no. Rules are rules (except for the last one, which is really stupid and can only be considered a financial punishment for the employee).
However, there's certainly no rule about bringing some fresh fruit to work, and mentioning it when talking to coworkers, and how beneficial they are for your health, and...
It's not cheaper (quite the contrary), but the effects of marketing are much more immediate than the effects of research. And it's the quarterly report that counts, not how the company is doing in three years.
Er, they have already. Plants have been doing it for years!
And they're efficient. They're not fast, though.
Actually they turn CO2 and H2O into carbohydrates and oxygen, but you can turn carbohydrates into hydrocarbons, and eventually pure carbon, by burying them deep underground for millions of years and waiting for heat and pressure to do their stuff.
The method I'm waiting for should work several orders of magnitude faster than that, and use some form of abundant and cheap energy (sunlight would be good).
Perhaps more cochlear implants would be used if they were not marketed so directly as a treatment for a problem.
But... they are.
You sure as hell don't want or need any of these if your hearing is intact. While they can allow people with certain hearing disorder to have a "normal" conversation with others (as long as there isn't too much background noise, etc, etc), they're even less than pale when compared to the real thing.
Hate to point this out, but in the best interests of society as a whole, IT IS BETTER to send innocent people to jail than let quilty people go free.
The thing is: For every innocent person in jail, there's a criminal that got away with the crime. Having an innocent person in jail isn't just bad for that person, but bad for society as a whole.
the idea is that someone who is doing or planning something illegal will become nervous and evasive when they finally get to talk to the agent. the more stressed they are from waiting in line, the more likely they are to betray their true intent.
Yeah right. As if there's no other reasons to get nervous and irritated after arriving at the airport. Like having spent 12+ hours in a cramped airplane, with kids screaming for 6 hours non-stop (bonus points if they're _your_ kids). Or worrying about catching that connecting flight (three hours doesn't seem to be enough safety margin nowadays). Or worrying about being asked stupid questions in a language you're not completely fluent in.
I've been to the German Democratic Republic (and other eastern countries), and nobody wanted my fingerprints.
At least they were discreet about it. If they wanted your fingerprints, you wouldn't really notice.
They did let your passport disappear for a few minutes (while you were driving between two booths only about 100m apart - of course, the line of cars was moving slowly because of the coffee break you mentioned), probably to take some good copies of it. Today, thanks to RFID chips, the same can be done without your passport ever leaving your possession.
1. We may and will share the data with whatever government or corporate entity we want. 2. We won't tell you whom we've shared your data with - that's private. 3. In case of unintentional sharing of your data, see #2.
No matter how many times I've been fingerprinted and never by the police for a suspected crime, I still feel soiled.
After touching a fingerprint scanner that has been touched by god-knows-how-many people and has a visible layer of grease on it, you have every reason to.
I wonder if I should bring some disinfectant next time. I think the toilet seats in the airport are more hygienic than those scanners.
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No "for profit" insurance company will ever offer insurance to "undesirables", no matter how fierce the competition. That's the major flaw of this plan.
Being not able to compensate other people for saving your life ... I'd say that's immoral. And unless you've got eight-figure savings, there's always cases that can leave you unable to pay the bill out of pocket.
It's just like car insurance. The average person can cause much, much more damage with their car than they'll ever be able to repay. Should their victims be stuck with the damage just because that person was such a tough guy and didn't take out insurance ?
For most people, "Just die", "Spend the next 10 years in excruciating pain and then die", "Become increasingly paralyzed over the next 15 years and then starve to death", and the like, are not acceptable options in a decision-finding process, even if they appear perfectly rational to anyone who's sufficiently sociopathic.
Funny how in your world, diseases are either (rapidly) terminal or merely annoying. Too bad that in the real world, most of them are somewhere in between these two extremes. Quite a few won't kill you, but will leave you permanently disabled, for example. There's pretty much every degree of nastiness out there.
Of course not. It's either your own fault, or god hates you. There are no accidents, period.
It's not a good system, but everything else is worse.
Because patent law says so.
No no no. Rules are rules (except for the last one, which is really stupid and can only be considered a financial punishment for the employee).
However, there's certainly no rule about bringing some fresh fruit to work, and mentioning it when talking to coworkers, and how beneficial they are for your health, and
And who can get a DL ? Anyone who can pass the test and pay the fee, right ?
The "no-drive" list would basically mean that people on it cannot get a DL and are not allowed to drive even if he have a DL.
Only in the small, unimportant part of the world that isn't the USA.
Tell that to the people in the black van who are paying you a visit at 3 a.m. to take you on a short ride.
Cassini doesn't have to lug around the weight of an RTG on the surface of a planet.
It's not cheaper (quite the contrary), but the effects of marketing are much more immediate than the effects of research. And it's the quarterly report that counts, not how the company is doing in three years.
And they're efficient. They're not fast, though.
Actually they turn CO2 and H2O into carbohydrates and oxygen, but you can turn carbohydrates into hydrocarbons, and eventually pure carbon, by burying them deep underground for millions of years and waiting for heat and pressure to do their stuff.
The method I'm waiting for should work several orders of magnitude faster than that, and use some form of abundant and cheap energy (sunlight would be good).
But ... they are.
You sure as hell don't want or need any of these if your hearing is intact. While they can allow people with certain hearing disorder to have a "normal" conversation with others (as long as there isn't too much background noise, etc, etc), they're even less than pale when compared to the real thing.
No. But then again, the Chinese didn't vote themselves into that situation.
... when they find a fast and efficient way to turn water and CO2 into oil and oxygen.
They're already tagged "aliens" if they're being fingerprinted. Duh !
The thing is: For every innocent person in jail, there's a criminal that got away with the crime. Having an innocent person in jail isn't just bad for that person, but bad for society as a whole.
Yeah right. As if there's no other reasons to get nervous and irritated after arriving at the airport. Like having spent 12+ hours in a cramped airplane, with kids screaming for 6 hours non-stop (bonus points if they're _your_ kids). Or worrying about catching that connecting flight (three hours doesn't seem to be enough safety margin nowadays). Or worrying about being asked stupid questions in a language you're not completely fluent in.
Yup yup. Don't forget dental prints, footprints, voice prints, skin maps, body scent samples, hair samples, fingernail samples, etc.
At least they were discreet about it. If they wanted your fingerprints, you wouldn't really notice.
They did let your passport disappear for a few minutes (while you were driving between two booths only about 100m apart - of course, the line of cars was moving slowly because of the coffee break you mentioned), probably to take some good copies of it. Today, thanks to RFID chips, the same can be done without your passport ever leaving your possession.
1. We may and will share the data with whatever government or corporate entity we want.
2. We won't tell you whom we've shared your data with - that's private.
3. In case of unintentional sharing of your data, see #2.
After touching a fingerprint scanner that has been touched by god-knows-how-many people and has a visible layer of grease on it, you have every reason to.
I wonder if I should bring some disinfectant next time. I think the toilet seats in the airport are more hygienic than those scanners.