Good. Bodily autonomy is a fundamental civil liberty, alongside medical privacy. In any just and free society, it doesn’t make sense to force people to undergo a medical procedure to do everyday things. If others are so fearful, they need to quarantine themselves instead of imposing forced medical procedures on others. After all, even with the vaccine they won’t be perfectly safe.
Fine, but if you don't get the vaccine, your insurance shouldn't distribute the burden of covering medical costs for you if you should require hospitalization. Right now, that's what's happening. It's not just "my body, my choice". It's access to vital healthcare for entire communities, and it's being plugged up by people who want to make a political statement.
It's similar to not being able to legally drive if you aren't wearing your seatbelt. People bitched about that, too.
There need to be consequences for this burden people are spreading to others.
Insurance does raise rates for people who are obese, quite significantly. So the distinction here is that they aren't taking similar action for people who refuse the vaccine.
Distinguish raising rates from refusing to cover costs. Also, my health insurance company has no idea how much I weigh, so I'm not sure how common that actually is.
This doesn’t apply to all insurances and doesn’t address the actual question at hand. Should obese people, smokers, alcoholics, drug users, etc be denied medical care for the choices they make?
If not, is this insurance argument of yours based on actually wanting medical care changes for the benefit of all or just to intimidate more people into getting the vaccine?
A seat belt is not quite the same. Both sure involve autonomy. However, not wearing your seat belt mainly puts your self at risk. A virus can spread to others.
As for externalties of like medical care sure not using a seat belt or taking the vaccine mean your more likely to need medical care. I will add though without seat belt your more likely to die at the scene. Thusly, how much more externalties not wearing a seat belt will cause I don't know, and would need some data on that point.
There is also an other big difference between a seat belt and vaccine. Mandating a vaccine is forcing someone to under go a medical procedure. Albeit a simple one. Where as a seat belt does not.
Although, bringing up seat belts I find it funny we allow people to drive motor cycles on public roads, but you must wear a seat belt in a car. So clearly this was not just about externalties. So the rule seems quite silly to me. (probably the car insurance lobby pushed for it)
In my honest opinion it would be better the state did not mandate either of these in my opinion. What is sad is the vaccine some how has become political, and people are not taking for either stupid reasons or believing false hoods. Despite this I don't think we should be quick abandon principles of liberty because of idiots. Every precedent set today can be used to forward an other one in the future you may not agree with. So best tread carefully.
My main point was that insurance companies should shift the financial burden to people who refuse to get vaccinated. And hospitals should prioritize the vaccinated in ICUs, even for elective procedures.
Why should that shift in financial responsibility be required when vaccine manufacturers were not made financially responsible for adverse reactions to their product, and thus shifting that responsibility to insurers?
It's such a nice, tiny step down the slippery slope from "prioritize the vaccinated" to "prioritize the 3x/4x/.../10x boostered," and then "prioritize the people who will indefinitely socially isolate themselves."
Before 2020 and this bizarre invented notion of an individual responsibility to avoid a contagious respiratory disease, an statement like "don't give medical care to people who do bad thing X" was commonly understood to be a fascist line of argument.
You've been using HN primarily for ideological battle lately—indeed, to post almost exclusively about one hot flamewar topic (this one). That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're battling for or against, because it's not in the intended spirit of the site (curiosity), and indeed it destroys that spirit.
Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended? I don't want to ban you but we don't allow single-purpose accounts or ideological battle accounts here and that is unfortunately what yours has turned into.
Not that I'm anybody, but though I've seen the GP post a lot on this topic, his posts generally feel respectful, genuinely interesting, and not meant to incite flamewars. I can see the argument that this isn't what the site is for, but its nice to have a contrarian view that is generally nuanced and thought out, and not just some crazy stuff with no basis in reality. Anyway, it's not my place to say whether someone is "using HN as intended" - just to say that I've seen lots of real abuses and wouldn't consider the stuff this person posts to qualify.
I don't have a problem with minority/contrarian views, but to use this site as intended, people need to be primarily oriented to intellectual curiosity, not hot political agendas. Those two sets are basically disjoint, so when an account is doing the latter, it stands out quite badly.
Of course, even within the latter category there's still a big difference between vandalizing the thread with flamebait vs. staying substantive and respectful.
I'll be all for bodily autonomy when people who are too gullible or lazy to get vaccinated stop clogging ERs because it's too hard to breathe. Hospital beds are a finite resource and those who do the right thing shouldn't be denied medical care because those who refuse to don't know how statistics work.
Good. The response to Covid-19 has been crazy from the beginning. People at high risk are obese, have comorbidities or are very old. Those are the groups which it makes sense to protect.
It does not make sense to damage kids' education and make poor people the world over even poorer.
I believe this pandemic is in fact, the first global mass hysteria.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 38.4 ms ] threadIt's similar to not being able to legally drive if you aren't wearing your seatbelt. People bitched about that, too.
There need to be consequences for this burden people are spreading to others.
If not, is this insurance argument of yours based on actually wanting medical care changes for the benefit of all or just to intimidate more people into getting the vaccine?
As for externalties of like medical care sure not using a seat belt or taking the vaccine mean your more likely to need medical care. I will add though without seat belt your more likely to die at the scene. Thusly, how much more externalties not wearing a seat belt will cause I don't know, and would need some data on that point.
There is also an other big difference between a seat belt and vaccine. Mandating a vaccine is forcing someone to under go a medical procedure. Albeit a simple one. Where as a seat belt does not.
Although, bringing up seat belts I find it funny we allow people to drive motor cycles on public roads, but you must wear a seat belt in a car. So clearly this was not just about externalties. So the rule seems quite silly to me. (probably the car insurance lobby pushed for it)
In my honest opinion it would be better the state did not mandate either of these in my opinion. What is sad is the vaccine some how has become political, and people are not taking for either stupid reasons or believing false hoods. Despite this I don't think we should be quick abandon principles of liberty because of idiots. Every precedent set today can be used to forward an other one in the future you may not agree with. So best tread carefully.
Before 2020 and this bizarre invented notion of an individual responsibility to avoid a contagious respiratory disease, an statement like "don't give medical care to people who do bad thing X" was commonly understood to be a fascist line of argument.
Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended? I don't want to ban you but we don't allow single-purpose accounts or ideological battle accounts here and that is unfortunately what yours has turned into.
Of course, even within the latter category there's still a big difference between vandalizing the thread with flamebait vs. staying substantive and respectful.
It does not make sense to damage kids' education and make poor people the world over even poorer.
I believe this pandemic is in fact, the first global mass hysteria.