X-Message-Number: 4352
Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 10:12:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <>
Subject: Government health care

On Fri, 5 May -1, CryoNet wrote:
> From:  (MR RONALD SELKOVITCH)
> 
> When David Stodolsky(#4217) made a minor reference to the advantages of
> government owned hospitals it was denounced immediately
> (#4227) as being politically motivated and inappropriate for this forum.
> 
> Has any one dared to consider that a Socialized medical system may be more
> sympathetic to Cryonics than the private system we have now. Isn't it
> worthy of debate.We may very well have to deal with it in the future.
> 
I agree.  I subscribe to 2 non-cryonics magazines.  As someone who teaches 
domestic and international business management, I far prefer the present 
and future world-views of The Economist (the struggle for affluence, 
peace, longevity, and better government in a complex world of 
group-forming and competitive humans), to the typical problems in 
Heavy Metal (the struggle for survival in a technologically advanced 
setting without good government - e.g. police state with no justice 
system, or post-nuclear anarchy, or whatever).

Governments are (almost always) interested in providing good health care: 
after all, the people at all levels in the government also benefit from 
it, and that's a natural part of why people are interested in forming 
governments in the first place.

Bureaucracies can be full of dead wood, waste, obstruction, etc; that's 
why we have to work for better governments.  Government policies can be 
counterproductive, short-sighted, destructive, even murderous; but places 
with good (whether or not extensive) and competitive governments are freer 
and healthier places to live than places with bad, rigid, or nonexistent 
governments.

As a non-American living in the US, I find the country amazingly dynamic, 
and this is reflected in the diverse, competing, highly fluid, highly 
responsive and rapidly evolving federal, state and local governments.

This relates to the diverse regional attitudes towards euthanasia, 
cryonics, etc.  A single, coherent government *could* promote cryonics, 
but, given cryonics' current lack of popular acceptance, would have to be 
a very unresponsive (i.e. totalitarian) government.

The diverse, competing governments of the US are more likely to throw up 
local pockets of pro-cryonics approaches, and provide cryonics with the 
opportunity of winning the battle of ideas by demonstrating achieved 
results. 

Governments that have allowed cryonics to develop and flourish locally 
will then tend to become its active advocates in the national and 
international forum: partly because they have a home-grown product to be 
proud of, partly because their support-base includes their cryonicist 
party-workers, contributors and voters.

Because American governments are highly responsive, you can make them your 
advocates or your enemies, depending on how you treat them.  A 
concentrated population of cryonicists that lets local government know 
what its overriding priorities are (in terms of zoning needs, local 
hospital support, autopsy concerns, etc), a population that seeks out 
responsive elected officials and candidates, a population that votes, is 
likely to develop a pro-cryonics government, at first at the local 
level.  

Ultimately, assuming our understanding of the universe is 
reasonable, all governments will be as pro-cryonics as they are 
pro-hospitals, pro-anesthetics, pro-ambulances, pro-rescue squads, etc.

For now, any pro-cryonics government would be an indescribably powerful tool.

Optimistically,

Robin HL


Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4352