From: ahk@chinet.com

Stephen Sprunk  wrote:
>On 27-Apr-15 08:36, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>Mandatory health coverage in the United States, like Medicare, has
>>nothing to do with preventing the spread of infectious disease.
>>Vaccinating the elderly doesn't do anything because they tend not to
>>be patient zero with regard to the most infectious diseases. It's
>>children. And our society isn't even enforcing mandatory vaccination
>>laws with respect to the most basic vaccinations.

>The laws allow exceptions, on the assumption not enough people would
>take advantage of them to affect herd immunity.  Thanks largely to
>hysteria caused by Jenny McCarthy, that assumption was wrong.  But the
>law _is_ being enforced as written, even if not as intended.

Wrong.

After the Disneyland epidemic, there have been numerous newspaper stories
pointing out schools that are simply failing to follow up with families
that failed to immunize their children or take extreme measures to keep
unimmunized children at home. In a mere handful of cases, parents expressed
objections that might be allowable exceptions, but that sure as hell wasn't
true in most cases.

>>Obamacare is largely about a mechanism to get hospital bills paid,
>>not about preventing the spread of infection and would be a lousy way
>>to achieve that.

>Well, if someone didn't get their kid vaccinated because they couldn't
>afford it, then universal coverage (the main goal of Obamacare) is a
>good solution.  One can't show up at the ER and get free vaccinations,
>like one can for an actual case of measles.

That's a false statement as we've long had mass immunization programs
going back decades. I recall TB tests at school and receiving booster
immunization shots at school.

There are charities that serve poor neighborhoods and, from time to time,
several of the national and regional drug store chains have sponsored
immunizations. Every July and August, churches and charities organize
mass immunization days in time to get children registered for school,
as it's a prerequisite (where enforced).

Affordability was never the issue and if you want your kids to be
immunized, there were always programs. You're completely wrong that this
was an issue that Obamacare addressed, and it sure as hell never was a
Medicare issue. If the kids were on Medicaid, then affordability wasn't
an issue either.

Nice moving the goalposts bit there. The Disneyland outbreak WAS NOT
poor kids spreading measles, but kids whose parents are upper middle
class twits who just knew better than sound scientific from decades of
medical morbidity and mortality studies.

>But that's not the actual problem in this case; these parents _did_ have
>access to vaccines and chose not to get them anyway.

Yes, Stephen, as I just said in the precursor article. It was in the bit
you cut out. Nice selective quoting job there.

--- SoupGate/W32 v1.03
 * Origin: LiveWire BBS -=*=- UseNet FTN Gateway (1:2320/1)