From: tob@world.std.com (Tom Breton)
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 14:38:36 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: RE: Workers Paradise. /Political rant.
Message-ID: <199609180100.AA07744@world.std.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca writes:
> I don't think that a reasonable person would argue that medical
> insurance should be outlawed because everyone should take care of their
> own needs. A social safety net is simply a form of health and life
> insurance. Statistical arbitrage if you will. By spreading the risk you
> minimize the cost. Yes, some people will take advantage of the system.
> But like a virus, a robust system should be able to withstand this form
> of attack.


It's too bad you received such fingers-in-the-ears libertarian-scream
responses to this. You deserved a better answer than that. Not that I
entirely agree. Let me quote part of something I once wrote on
essentially this topic:

"With *real* insurance it's tough enough to root out fraud. How can an
unwritten, virtual policy, knowable only through deduction, addressing
our entire circumstances of birth, that the insured may deny contracting
to or may disagree about what the terms were, be easy to sort out?"

        Tom