FOOTAGE of a unicorn running though a wood has been exposed as an elaborate hoax to promote an upcoming science exhibition.
Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Canada, claimed it had been sent the video by a group of intrepid myth hunters and was analysing the footage.
[. . .]
The centre decided to reveal the truth about the video - but not after causing a media storm.
"We've received calls from all kinds of people, predominantly women, and some confused news reporters, in response to the video,” The Science Centre spokesman Christine Crosbie said.
There are no unicorns? Even desperately wanting them to exist doesn't help? Could this also mean that there's no such thing as a "shovel-ready project" or a way to cover more people with health insurance while reducing the cost?
Well, let's be careful not to get carried away.
Comments
You can absolutely increase the number of people insured and reduce the cost of insurance. That's almost the whole point of insurance - the greater the risk pool, the more manageable and predictable the risk.
The problem is that health insurance isn't really just "insurance," in the sense that you're managing unknown risk. It can also be sort of a subscription service where you're paying a flat fee to serve a known need with an unknown quantity of service. (The all-you-can-eat buffet model.) You're right, with some exceptions for economies of scale, that you can't generally invite more people to the buffet and lower the cost.
I think our discussions should be clearer about whether we're talking about making it easier and more affordable for people to manage risk or talking about subsidizing the needs of the less healthy. (Related, but different concepts, I think). Both are, in my opinion, valid policy goals; but the latter is definitely a more expensive proposition. Unless we're willing to suck it up and just let people die, however, it's an expense we're going to incur one way or another.
Doug sez: You can absolutely increase the number of people insured and reduce the cost of insurance. That
Leo:
Geez, where is someone like Orson Welles when you really NEED him anyway?
And Tim, I don't even GO to "the pool"...
(too many "kids" pee in it)
;)
Your highly intelligent friends are going to be severely disappointed that you've never read the Bible.
In the King James Bible, which is favored by the very fundamentalists who are unaware that James was gay, there are several references to unicorns.
For example: Numbers 23:22, 24:8; Deuteronomy 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Psalm 29:6 and 92:10; and Isaiah 24:7.
I, of course, believe every word in the Bible is literally true. Are you denying that? Are you make fun of God's unicorns?