# If Not For Medicare, How Would Seniors Get Health Care?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-for-medicare-how-would-seniors-get-health-care/527529>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 3, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-for-medicare-how-would-seniors-get-health-care/527529 "2010-02-03T15:46:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 116

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**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-not-for-medicare-how-would-seniors-get-health-care/527529/116 "2010-02-05T12:39:49Z")

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> [@emacknight](#):
>
> Unless the baby is poor and can’t afford health care, then they deserve to die after they’re born.
> 
> Seems strange that you would force a life to be born only to then force it to die because the mother can’t afford health care.
> 
> And let’s not forget that babies born with pre-existing conditions will also get excluded from health insurance, and ultimately bankrupt the parents.
> 
> Wouldn’t the most logically consistent argument be, “if you can’t afford to pay for your child’s medical care, the pregnancy should be terminated.”
> 
> Force a woman to be pregnant, but don’t provide pre-natal care, increasing the likely hood of low birth weight and neo-natal problems, then dump the child into a world without health care, where it will ultimately die of an easily preventable condition. Sounds like a very long and very complicated abortion to me. But I guess potato potato.

Those are very compelling arguments. And if we restricted abortion, I have to say that we’d be morally obligated to provide some form of universal health care, pre-cradle to grave.

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