X-Message-Number: 31841
From: Dan Hitt <>
Subject: cooling it on the health insurance debate
References:  <>
Date: Sat,  1 Aug 2009 18:26:37 -0400 (EDT)

When we were entering an armed conflict several years ago Professor
Ettinger advised that debate of this issue among cryonicists was
probably divisive and in any event unlikely to make any difference
because we form such an extravagently small percentage of the
population.  (So his point was not that we don't debate it, but just
not in a cryonics forum.)

It was very hard for me to follow this advice because i had such
strong feelings on the matter.

But in retrospect i think he was right.

And i think his advice may apply to the health insurance debate as
well.  Supposing we cryonicists reach a consensus (which we won't,
because there are smart and dedicated people on both sides), it
won't make any difference anyway.  Our one piece of really
excellent advice---get frozen after you die---is resolutely
ignored by the rest of the world.

We will continue to finance our cryonics through either savings or
life insurance (not health insurance) so i think how long we continue
to finance health care through health insurance may not be directly on
point.  I'm not saying that we can't stray off the topic sometimes,
but our group does have cohesiveness issues.

dan

PS: And though i hope to leave my position on health insurance unknown
on this tiny forum which won't have any effect on the outcome anyway,
i want to say that Rudi is performing a real service to our community
by making it easy for anybody to get cryonics life insurance.  This is
true whether he is 100% right or 100% wrong on health insurance.  (Of
course i'm also glad that our community can benefit from the thoughts
and work of Dr. Newport, Matthew, Joe, and Charles also---and Flav,
who i hope will one day be permitted to come out of the closet by
whatever circumstances are keeping him in.)

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