Friday, April 16, 2010

The Limits to the Welfare State

The Netherlands has finally discovered a limit to the largesse of its welfare state: no state-funded artificial breasts for transsexuals. That’s it! Thus far and no farther!

Yes, it’s true. I’m glad to see that there is at least one public servant in Europe willing to take a stand on a matter of important principle. And it really is a matter of principle: the decision has been made on the basis of gender equity. People who were born female are not being granted the same benefit, so it would be unfair to give free boobies to the gender-modified.

According to NIS News:

Minister: No Free Breasts for Transsexuals

THE HAGUE, 15/04/10 — The Lower House wants men having themselves transformed into women to be given breasts by the government. But Health Minister Ab Klink is not planning to do so.

People who undergo a sex change operation are reimbursed for the medical costs in the Netherlands. This does not apply to secondary procedures, including electronic depilation of bodily hair and the creation of breasts.
- - - - - - - - -
The House wants men undergoing a sex change to be reimbursed for these supplementary procedures as well. This would involve about 100 people a year and would only cost 250,000 euros, the House majority argues.

But Klink will not change anything for now. He does not wish to give preferential treatment to transsexuals over and above real women who would dearly like to have bigger breasts and are also not reimbursed.


Hat tip: C. Cantoni.

15 comments:

filthykafir said...

Oh, the solution to this issue is as obvious as a Mae West in an elevator: give free breasts to whomever wants them.

Boobs to the boobgoise, I say! Boobs on demand. In fact, just make boobs compulsory for everyone, whether they want them or not, and be done with it.

filthykafir said...

That probably should be "boobgoisie;" apologies to H. L. Mencken.

histfan said...

Since "unhappiness" is defined as proof of social injustice within the welfare state thinking, I'm sure transsexuals soon will get their longed-for breasts..

Conservative Swede said...

Big breasts for free for everyone! I guess this is some people's idea of the ideal society. Everybody will be immensely happy. How nice that they are eventually focusing on the really important issues, the ordinary people really care about.

Maybe this will turn into an ideological beauty contest, where the people with the biggest breasts will be seen as the ones best realizing the Enlightenment ideals to its ultimate conclusion. So in this competition the breasts will just grow bigger and bigger and bigger. The Swedish girls will end up having the biggest breasts.

Jedilson Bonfim said...

Is it just me who finds that fake boobs end up making people look like they have curling stones in their bras?

But, on the topic of frivolous spending allowed by government-run healthcare plans, here's a quote from the late Tony Wilson (whom, regardless of his politics, I respect because of what his involvement in the running and creation of Factory Records has done for the alternative music scene), describing something similar occurring in Britain.

Wilson said: "This [Sutent] is my only real option. It is not a cure but can hold the cancer back, so I will probably be on it until I die. When they said I would have to pay £3,500 for the drugs each month, I thought where am I going to find the money? I'm the one person in this industry who famously has never made any money. I used to say some people make money and some make history, which is very funny until you find you can't afford to keep yourself alive. I've never paid for private healthcare because I'm a socialist. Now I find you can get tummy tucks and cosmetic surgery on the NHS but not the drugs I need to stay alive. It is a scandal."

Any ominous similarities between Mr Wilson's fate and what Buraq-Hussein care might bring about in the US is NOT mere coincidence, is it?

Conservative Swede said...

Is it just me who finds that fake boobs end up making people look like they have curling stones in their bras?

I completely agree, but I miss those practical handles.

Maybe with a more rational government plan...

I mean we have to consider also the needs of old people who need walkers as support. That'd be real safe sex for you! Liberate the sex of the geriatric segment! And more secure for you too.

God, I really love the Enlightenment! Everything will be functional and nice.

Breast feeding? No, that's for animals. We have more rational and modern ways... We don't want the sort of primitive animals, but nice and proper girls with giant curling stones and functional handles.

Henrik R Clausen said...

give free breasts to whomever wants them.

Unfortunately, the quality of those would tend to fall, Soviet-style :(

Yeah, I also think these fake balloons are ugly...

Anonymous said...

There's no difference in between healthcare and plastic surgery. They're both services that people use. If the government is more efficient at doing the former, it is more efficient at doing the latter, so it should be good to have it do boob jobs. And the morality is the same, I'm an athletic, relatively well endowed girl who wouldn't get plastic surgery(I think lol). I'm taxed for it to pay the surgeries of transexuals. Now, I workout and eat healthy, why should I pay the heart surgery of people who don't?

Anonymous said...

Because they will pay for the injuries you will suffer from all your workout. Plus, we only have your word about you exercising and eating healthily. Plus, heart surgery is not something you can decide to rule out of your life. It can happen even if you do everything the doctor says.

Unless, of course, you accept to have no health insurance at all, public or private, and to pay everything out of your own pocket. Including when you will be very old and very ill, as we all will be at some point.

Health insurance, whether it is public or private, can only work if the healthy accept to subsidize the unhealthy. Refusing the deal is not a safe bet : however fit one may be, nobody is immortal.

Anonymous said...

Robert, the costs that a healthy person has are a lot smaller than those of an unhealthy one. And I don't need you to believe me, you just need to have people pay for their own treatments. That's an incentive to actually be healthy.

Also, there is insurance for catastrophic things that would be cheap since it wouldn't cover check ups and so on, provided the government isn't involved. Or if people pay out of pocket. There is a difference in between being insured and getting welfare(which public healthcare is). With insurance, I choose to cover myself against a risk. With government welfare, I'm coerced at the threat of violence to provide for others. And there is no such thing as public health insurance.

Also, when I will be old, I will also have children that if I raised properly will care about me. If you didn't have children, tough luck.

Armance said...

I guess that's why Barack Obama bows to every despot in the world. He knows it's an ideological beauty contest, and his message is: "Hey, do you like my Marxist cleavage? It's the best, isn't it? It's better than what you have in China".

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

rebelliousvanilla,

Young, fit and rebellious, the empathy will come with age and maturity.

Anonymous said...

Spot on, 4Symbols.

Dymphna said...

Young, fit and rebellious, the empathy will come with age and maturity...

Along with the physical changes you cannot stop. You can delay them some, or pay money to hide them, but in the end, it is those children who will help you live a civilized old age. As you said, rv, if you've "raised them properly"...

...actually, now that I think of it, merely carrying a few of them to term will change your body irrevocably.

Anonymous said...

4Symbols, I'm a charitable person. I actually use my own behind in helping others, not vote to tax other people in order to feel better about myself. Not only are governments inefficient, but I just mind it and find it immoral to be parted of my property at the threat of violence in order to help others. I do believe that people should help each other, I just don't feel like they should be forced to be into an inefficient system of helping those who are willing to leech on others - since that's what the government promotes.

Dymphna, I know, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. In an ideal situation we would all stay physically at 18, have the life experience of an 80 years old and the intellectual ability of a 25 years old, but we can't do that. So I will have children at 25, raise them until they're 18 and they'll help me when I'll be 80 if I do a good job. :)

To those of you who are so empathetic, how many times in the last year have you not eaten at work or school in order to give your lunch money to somebody? If you didn't at least a few times, don't preach empathy to the people who did. Stealing from some and giving to others isn't empathy, you donating your money is.

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