I think the most common one employers might want to check is for BRCA. But there are markers for other kinds of conditions that may never play out, like heart disease and severe obesity, that they might want to use to discriminate on the basis of, just because they can.

Oh, I agree! I think it’s one of those things that has been going on for so long that people have trouble conceiving of it differently....

That’s remarkable, and yet unsurprising.

These are all excellent points. I’m not even sure that I understood how this whole mishegas got started, which is disturbing. But we’ve definitely got two things conflated here (wages and employment; health insurance) that don’t have to be, and really shouldn’t be attached to each other.

Good God, I knew that, but I hadn’t really considered it in that exact way...

Wow, that’s interesting. A regular driver’s license, or a truck or bus driver’s license? Who knew? We definitely tend to think of Europe as a privacy Utopia as well as a “everybody is insured” one, but it’s good to have actual notes from the actual field...

Damn, that’s funny!

So true. And apparently, from what I’ve read in Rolling Stone and The Atlantic, the Republican swing to the hard-right is all about the donors, rather than the voters. As the donors have become wealthier and wealthier over the decades, their influence over the direction of the party has swung it way to the right of…

I feel that way, too.

I Lol’d! It hurt, but I still did it! If this guy isn’t an advertisement for what Coco Chanel said about “getting the face you deserve by age 50,” I don’t know what is!

Thanks — I’m finally starting to feel better. This was supposed to be wayyyy more low-key than it turned out, though.

Thank you. I was finally able to sleep, and I’m feeling much better. Also, I can pee without gasping in pain, so that’s good....

Me, too. I think it’s the voice. I like a nice, deep, raspy voice. Yummy.

I loved my panda pile — I’m feeing better, finally, and it is still cheering me up!

Well, I’m not offended — I’m cheered. Sometimes when you can’t do something yourself, it’s reassuring to think of other people doing it. And I’m feeling much better today — sleep is the elixir of life...

Does that mean your mustaches are elaborately waxed?

We need more family practice doctors! Also, probably you’d get to do a lot more gross stuff, unless your plastic surgery practice includes an ER component. I’ve had some plastic surgeons in ERs do some very, very nice work on me.

Yeah, that was a bit much for me, too.

Preach, brothers and sisters! Preach!

And... in case anyone is confused about why we will ultimately need single-payer health care in this country, here it is! Employers, who currently hold the gatekeeper’s position for health insurance for folks under 65, WILL DISCRIMINATE against the potentially less-well as soon as they have the opportunity. The…