WTF. I'm pretty sure that kind of thing was what they meant by death panels, right?

Actually, I think they were thinking of this when they were thinking of Death Panels. Guess they forgot that the Texas Advanced Directives Act of 1999 was signed into law by George W. Bush.

I'd like to think that getting health services is a basic right for everyone. I can understand that the U.S. relates it to your ability to work as a kind of a strange incentive, but I always thought that the formula was "you need to be healthy in order to get a job", and not "you need to get a job in order be healthy".

but I always thought that the formula was "you need to be healthy in order to get a job", and not "you need to get a job in order be healthy".

Here, that's considered Crazy Socialist Talk.

I'd like to think that getting health services is a basic right for everyone.

Yeah, so would I.

See above.

but I always thought that the formula was "you need to be healthy in order to get a job", and not "you need to get a job in order be healthy".

Socialist! Commie! HIPPIE!

DH asked me yesterday where the word "hippie" originated. Anyone know?

From hipster, it looks like. [link]

And Wikipedia says this: [link]

Pulled from Wiki:

exicographer Jesse Sheidlower, the principal American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, argues that the terms hipster and hippie derive from the word hip, whose origins are unknown.[2] The term hipster was coined by Harry Gibson in 1940.[3] Although the word hippie made isolated appearances during the early 1960s, the first clearly contemporary use of the term appeared in print on September 5, 1965, in the article, "A New Haven for Beatniks", by San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon. In that article, Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse, using the term hippie to refer to the new generation of beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the Haight-Ashbury district. New York Times editor and usage writer Theodore M. Bernstein said the paper changed the spelling from hippy to hippie to avoid the ambiguous description of clothing as hippy fashions.

At the time health insurance was originally tied to employers, it made a lot more sense than it does today. Curing diseases at the turn of the century was pretty hit or miss, but if you were injured on an assembly line, it seemed only fair that your employer should pay for the emergency care. It was also much more common to work for one company your whole life, so the idea of being "tied to a job for the health insurance" was like, well, the railroad's the only employer in town anyway, so...

(VAST VAST VAST OVERSIMPLIFICATION. COFFEE LEVELS INSUFFICIENT TO GOOGLE AND CORRECT MISTAKES.)

I was thinking of this kind of thing:

actual legislative proposals that would provide financing for optional consultations with doctors about hospice care and other “end of life” services,

From here: [link]