This Is One Fetish I Just Dont Get...

[BuzzWestChris]

I call it the Cleansing of the Gene Pool!!!

[JamesXR]

I call it the Cleansing of the Gene Pool!!!

While there's some overlap into straight, this seems like mostly a gay thing, so we're not really dealing with "breeders" to begin with. You can't really cleanse from the gene pool a population that isn't reproducing much in the first place. Also, somehow, someway, a lot of those bug chasers are going to end up on thousands of dollars worth of drugs a month. They don't sound like they're the sharpest tools in the shed, so the government is probably going to help them with that while they drag on for however long HIV positive people can live these days, which is probably longer than the life expectancy in Afghanistan.
Read, "drain on society". The biggest impact that AIDs is having in Africa isn't the wholesale slaughter of people, but all those young people who could be working are suffering a wasting illness, at great economic cost. We're not so close to subsistence level that we feel it, but bug chasing isn't a Darwin award giving event.

How big of an issue is this anyway? How big is the bug chasing community. Is this overblown because it's so freakish?

[basschick]

if people who get hiv in this way are not covered, many will end up dying in the streets - or turning tricks to avoid that fate, and that would be a disaster for all involved. let's face it - your average lazy person isn't going to get a potentially fatal disease in order to avoid working. bug chasers are already in desparate need of a psychiatrist, which means that they already should probably be receiving medicare and treatment.

Should health insurance and medicare be able to ban someone who was proven to be a bug chaser? It would be a lot less attractive of a community if the main topic of conversation was, "How will I get ahold of the money that I need to stay alive?"
That's harsh, but right now the fact that you don't have to pay any portion of the costs is essentially endorsing it as a lifestyle. You should be able to put people on the list the moment they mention the interest so that they know they're on their own if they go through with it.

[desslock]

DonMike hits it right on the head.

It all just about fitting in.

There's entire section about this psychology at your local library. Or, just go watch The Breakfast Club.

Steve


"Claire.... are you a virgin????" Just answer the question, Claire...

[JamesXR]

if people who get hiv in this way are not covered, many will end up dying in the streets - or turning tricks to avoid that fate, and that would be a disaster for all involved. let's face it - your average lazy person isn't going to get a potentially fatal disease in order to avoid working. bug chasers are already in desparate need of a psychiatrist, which means that they already should probably be receiving medicare and treatment.

The thing is that our society doesn't let people die in the streets. People expect to be caught when they fall down. That is a great thing, but not if it encourages someone to jump. If medicare covers $1000 a month of someone's HIV medication, that wipes out the taxes I pay. Poof, not available for schools or hospitals. Gone because someone decided to do something stupid, knowing that they wouldn't have to pay the consequences alone.
If we cut things off and 1000 new bug chasers died in the streets, but 3000 more opted for bible study instead, would it be worth it to have spared the 3000. It's a tough question, but I feel that it should be at least be asked.
Also, I don't know if the problem is of a scale that would justify the healthcare companies putting together a list. Anyone have numbers?

[DonMike]

The thing is that our society doesn't let people die in the streets. People expect to be caught when they fall down. That is a great thing, but not if it encourages someone to jump. If medicare covers $1000 a month of someone's HIV medication, that wipes out the taxes I pay. Poof, not available for schools or hospitals. Gone because someone decided to do something stupid, knowing that they wouldn't have to pay the consequences alone.
If we cut things off and 1000 new bug chasers died in the streets, but 3000 more opted for bible study instead, would it be worth it to have spared the 3000. It's a tough question, but I feel that it should be at least be asked.
Also, I don't know if the problem is of a scale that would justify the healthcare companies putting together a list. Anyone have numbers?

Yeah, but James, saying that bug chasers should not get medicare is like saying that anyone who smokes, or doesn't eat healthy and exercise should not get care. You have cancer? Well, you smoked all your life, you don't get any neener neener neener. What good will that do? How about anyone who engages in risky behavior? People who ride motorcycles without helmets. People who surf (yeah, say you're being safe but anything could happen out there). You can deny someone medicare because of their lifestyle.

[JamesXR]

Yeah, but James, saying that bug chasers should not get medicare is like saying that anyone who smokes, or doesn't eat healthy and exercise should not get care. You have cancer? Well, you smoked all your life, you don't get any neener neener neener. What good will that do? How about anyone who engages in risky behavior? People who ride motorcycles without helmets. People who surf (yeah, say you're being safe but anything could happen out there). You can deny someone medicare because of their lifestyle.

I'd say there's one big difference. Smokers aren't smoking to get cancer. Fat people don't get fat to have heart disease. Bikers don't ride motorcycles to get in accidents. Surfers don't surf in order to get eaten by sharks.
Bug chasers become HIV positive, unless I suppose they're really terrible at it. This is the culmination of the lifestyle. Then they go on drugs to keep from dying and enjoy their newfound community.
Health insurance is in case you have an accident. It does cost more if you have a riskier lifestyle. If you were running a health insurance company and one of your clients informed you that they were going to actively acquire a disease that would cost you thousands a month, and wanted you to cover them, you'd say "Hell no!" A biker might get in an accident, and they might not. They aren't 100% guaranteed to get in that accident, and if they wipe out on the freeway, there's a good chance that they won't need any medical services. You can figure out the margins on that so you could cover bikers, and average everything out so the income from 100 bikers covers the guy who gets in a survivable accident. If 100 bug chasers are going to get HIV on purpose, who's going to pay. They're sticking it to everyone else. That's an abuse of our system.
The cost of HIV drugs look to be around the same as sending a kid to college on a scholarship. If it actually came down to that choice of, sponsoring the lifestyles of a million bug chasers or sending a million underprivileged kids to college, would you really turn down those million kids and tell them that you need to finance the lifestyles of fools instead. Then again, if you're not paying out a dime to those million bug chasers and they have to come up with all the money on their own, how many of them stay bug chasers? How many of them see two or three thousand a month to stay alive as enough disincentive to keep them bug chasing. Would you deny them that drug coverage, if it meant that half of those million wouldn't contract HIV? If you could prevent a 500,000 from contracting an expensive wasting illness by condeming the others to indefinite financial hardship or perhaps quicker deaths, would you?
To put another way, would you let 500,000 become infected because you didn't want to tell a million that they were on their own if they followed through with their stated goals.

By the way, you didn't mention meth. From my understanding serious gay meth users have a near 100% chance of getting HIV if they don't quit soon enough. I didn't say we should ban them from HIV drugs because they're not actually out to get HIV, and telling serious drug addicts that the state wouldn't pay for their HIV drugs probably wouldn't slow them down.

[Baghdad Bob]

if peoples want to kill themselves with not using condoms let them it is there live