Indiana State Rep. Steve Buyer (not pictured) has a brilliant idea to keep down the costs of health care: Raise the insurance premiums on anyone having sex without a condom!
Yes, Mr. Buyer is sort of crazypants. But also, we sort of love this idea!
Sure, it could be argued it’s aimed squarely at gays who are doing all that barebacking, and yes, we might have to get a waiver for a certain Oscar-winning screenwriter, but Buyer’s plan isn’t just about un-safe sex. He also wants to raise premiums for other types of risky activity, like smoking, never exercising, or folks who made more than one trip to the McDonald’s drive-thru per day. (Okay, we made that last one up.)
Perhaps you’ve heard: Health care is expensive! But, the common wisdom goes, we want to provide it to as many people as possible. So why not make it more affordable for all by effectively taxing those who voluntarily put their health at risk?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Even if it’s a decent idea in theory, it’s all but impossible to enforce. You could test folks for nicotine levels in their blood to see if they’re smokers, and then raise their premiums, but unless your bedroom activities are being uploaded to the Internet, how will officials know you’re Dustin Lance Black-ing it?
(Photo)
jamesn
If it includes the breeders, then I’m all for it.
Jack
Why not raise premiums for ‘folks who made more than one trip to the McDonald’s drive-thru per day’? No one’s forcing that crap down their throats (the advertising industry aside…) Teach them willpower, or make them take some responsibility for their health!
glen
Yes, it MUST be more effective to raise premiums for sexual “deviants” than to engage the population in a thoughtful, reasonable program of education and discussion on the risks and consequences of the many things we do that affect our health and the quality and quantity of our lives.
Love the Condom dude, by the way. Clearly he went to an Abstinence Education only school and is struggling to figure out what to do with the big, funny balloon. 🙂
galefan2004
You know, if this concept actually applied universally, then there wouldn’t be a large strain on the health care system by hetero baby making breeders. Perhaps it doesn’t dawn on this dude that taxing bare backers would decreased the pregnancy rate. Wouldn’t this also tear down the walls of abstinence only safe sex (shock).
Seriously, if you want to start blaming people for putting their health at risk then blame the crystal queens that can’t even remember the names of the people that they slept with last week but know they used a condom (if only a condom could prevent the spread of all STIs) instead of blaming the committed partners that have been together for months or years that chose not to use a condom when they have sex.
Fitz
There have been a lot of attempts to link costs to lifestyle choices. Going BB, (and receptive), is pretty hard to track.
I am visioning someone running into my room to grab my dick to see if I am wearing a rubber…. not gunna happen.
And HIV is not the most deadly or expensive disease we have. The McD’s idea is pretty good— why shouldn’t the cost of healthcare be attached to a dangerous item? Even just taxing Obese people is more reasonable than BB’rs. (because you can’t really fake ‘fit’).
Erick
Oh Queerty, you have such a one track mind. Straight people do bareback too, I reckon a lot more than “the gays”. Why would this be “aimed squarely at gays”.
ggreen
By defining “bareback” as only happening in gay sex. It gives it that filthy degenerate cachet that homophobes love! Unprotected sex happens in hetro land too people.
SummerGlau
@ Fitz:
Taxing obese people is quite possibly the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. That piece of idiocy stems from the idea that all fat people are fat because they are lazy and over-eat. A very infinitesimal percentage of fat people are fat for those reasons. I hope your legs are irreparably shattered and you spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair, unable to exercise because of the pain, getting fat until you die because you can’t afford health care. *end rant*
This idea is stupid mainly because the only way to enforce it would involve a gross invasion of privacy
Jack
@SummerGlau: So your assertion is that only a tiny percentage of people are overweight because they lack self-control, and that the vast majority are in wheelchairs as a consequence of horrific accidents?
And that you’re so sensitive to their suffering, you’re free to wish their fate on people who disagree with your views?
Fitz
@SummerGlau: No, it does not come from a belief that obese people are obese because of laziness… It’s based on how often obese people get sick, and with what. What si the leading cause of death and debilitating illness in the country? Pencils down: CHF. Most of which is preventable. And I didn’t suggest taxing Obese people was reasonable, I suggested it was MORE reasonable than attempting to monitor sex– simply because scales don’t lie.
PS: have you tried sanka?
Dishy
@SummerGlau:
That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard – you have the facts backward SummerGlau – it’s the smaller number of obese people with medical conditions which contribute to their weight than it is the gigantic eaters of shit food. Please – do you live in NYC? Check out the fatties here buddy, they voluntarily shove so much fast food shit down their gullets and it shows.
Richard in DC
I’m all for putting a huge tax on Junk Food…. as one author, Michael Pollan, states, we’d ought to stop calling it junk food, and call it what it is… Just Junk.
Steve
If you really want to get a bang for your buck in support health care? Tax people for every pound they are overweight (with doctor exemptions, of course).
Ousslander
@Steve:Most people that agree with would find themselves paying because most people would not match the perfect weight for their heights.
But don’t forget those pesky anorexics(?), consumers of alcohol, eat red meat, use salt, don’t get proper amount of sleep, sky dive, etc, etc.
schlukitz
Is the dude in he picture modeling a prototype design of the Pope’s new Mitre?
AL
Is there anything the government doesn’t want to tax you on nowadays? How about a tax on the amount of garbage that people spew out of their mouthes! Anyobe? Anyone? Bueller?
Anon
I think it’s really funny that Dustin Lance Black’s name has become synonymous with unprotected anal sex.
Boy did his P.R. firm handle THAT poorly.
KyleR
This is the worst. Idea. Ever.
Because to make a baby, don’t heterosexuals have to go bareback? Or, is does this apply only if the top is knocking on the back door?
galefan2004
You guys act like eating fast food is a one way ticket to death and that is such utter crap. There are people of all types that get CHF. Its an equal opportunity killer. There are people that eat fast food every single day and it does absolutely nothing to them. They test acceptable on every single blood test given to them. Lets tax muscle queens more heavily because god only knows what all those supplements are doing to them.
jason
Actually, the number of hetero’s who bareback is greater than the number of homo’s who do it. As for the tax, why should it be placed on healthy monogamous couples? Healthy monogamous couples who bareback have zero risk.
Maverick69
Why don’t we just tax people for the air they breath. That should settle it.
me
ffs does anyone have a link to that video?
me
@jason: of course the NUMBER of hetero EVERYTHING is greater than homo everything. what about the RATE?
Bruce in Tampa
While we’re at it, let’s tax all sporting activities. How many sports-related injuries are being paid for by the rest of us?
schlukitz
@Bruce in Tampa:
While we’re at it, let’s tax all sporting activities. How many sports-related injuries are being paid for by the rest of us?
Amen…from also in Tampa. ;o)
M Shane
it’s just a silly consideration, of course,, since the only way you would know is if everyone had to have a camera (say on a cock ring) with them all the time.
Married couples(str. or gay) after a few months could have an exclusion except maybe once a week when they would have sex with each other.
The reality of that matter is that the idea of gay marriage only became an issue after the AIDS ediemic. Few people ever thought of it before, finding more delight with a sexual buffet.& community. Then, thanks to the (gay) right wing assimilation and marriage arrived as s solution to the scare.
This to people in other countries and progressives here was proof perfect of how dullwitted an closeted many American gays were. in formulating solutions to the problem.
Even people who couldn’t tolerate a room mate found themselves stuck with only one options or the condemnation of being an “old maid” or the necessity of putting up with one person all the time.
The most constructive answer, instead of heeding twits like A. Sullivan would have been proactive teaching of safe sex in baths etc. This would be satisfactory to the larger population of gay men who preferred to love more than just one person. The condom is no delight but it becomes necessary for all of the tactile delights to be had in sex. A lot of creative activities would need to be experimented with , as Rolfes , in “Reviving the Tribe”describes..
When and where we had much more communication, and less puritainism about sex. Commited relationships were more a of a spontaineous thing with multiple persons
ben
As has been said, straight people bareback too, and we’re not just talking condomless vagintercourse. Rough figures have been given that 80% of homosexual males engage in anal sex (give/recieve), whereas 30% of heterosexuals engage in anal sex (give/recieve). If 20% of the overall population consists of homosexual adults, split 50/50 male and female, this works out to 8% of the overall population as men who engage in homosexual anal intercourse, leaving 24% of the overall population as heterosexuals who engage in anal intercourse. The figures for who is having the anal intercourse become more astounding when you consider that, for several reasons, the gay couples are more likely to use condoms for anal sex than straight couples.
Bethatasitmay, My main issue with this article is that raising taxes on barebacking and raising health insurance premiums for people who engage in risky behavior (smoking, barebacking etc) are NOT AT ALL the same thing. This would be a shameful act of sensationalizing if the two were even related. I can’t believe all the users who have barked their outrage at the man making this push and not at Queerty for inventing this offensive situation.
Kamikapse
@M Shane:
Less “puritanism”? Please, the people you describe that would have prefered to have sex and relationships with multiple people wouldn’t use condoms anyhow, no matter how much proactive teaching they had access to.
John from England(used to be just John but there are other John's)
Jeez, how odd and warped.
Nope hetero’s never get STD’S or Aids.
Yep.
Hannah
If this applies to hets, won’t this hit the Catholics hard? And the Mormons?
This is stupid. Surely just rhetoric. Please.
Brian Miller
Ahhhhh, now my socialist friends are starting to get the picture… hopefully not too late.
The government that has a monopoly on “providing health care” can also attach odious restrictions on personal freedoms — including sexual practices and dietary habits — as a direct result of that monopoly.
Suddenly, freedom looks pretty appealing, warts and all, no?
I never understood lefties who hated George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, yet demanded health care and retirement programs that would have given those two a monopoly over their own health care and economic well-being. Hopefully this Indiana rep’s proposals will awaken them to the frightening possibilities.
SM
@Brian Miller:
Oh good Grief. Obama is not a socialist. Just ask a Socialist.
hand
oh my lord. i can’t believe some people would support this vile notion, which is OBVIOUSLY completely unconstitutional (along with sampling people’s blood for nicotine levels, pounds overweight, and other blatantly totalitarian measures)
M Shane
No. 31 · Brian Miller : Brian: you are really the epitome of ignorance: History has born out that all of the countries in which we have installed privatization have had to be dictatorships (e.g. Pinochet-Chile, Suharto Indonesia etc etc.) In every instance freedom was lost until socialism was ordained by the people.
In this country the Wealth can well afford to pay for healthcare: they benefit from this country more than anyone by far. As Salon recently wrote up: “The Rich Have Never had it so Good”, which is astonishingly true. As Warren Buffet said a year ago”I pay less taxes than my receptionist”. Thanks to Right Wing (Fascist BTW) fucks like Reagan, Nixon, Bush and the lot of scammers the wealthy just soak it up a a rate unheard of ever in history.
Stalinism( which is not Socialism) and Communist China were nasty. As bad as Capitalist Russia and China.Not as bad as all of the Fascist states put together.
The only form of economics proven compatable with freedom or democracy is a combination of Socialism and
limoited Capitalism, as is practiced in much oif the civilized world,.
damon459
first off I don’t want the gov let alone and insurance company nosing in my bedroom what I do and with whom I do it and how is my business. As to this whole obese thing I’m really getting sick and tired of Gym bunnies who think they will live longer because of there diet and exercise I can tell you of one example I knew a couple one smoked and drank every day btw he smoked outside his wife was a vegan and exercised all the time she was a picture of health so to speak she had a stroke at 50 and her husband lived to be 80. The real truth is we don’t know what is the best way to live and what will keep us healthy and no matter what you could get hit by a bus. I have a “BMI” of 27 I never eat fast food I eat a well balanced diet drink plenty of water and exercise daily though not at a gym I like walking jogging hiking nice free outdoor activities now should I pay more for insurance cause I’m “slightly” over weight ? If you want to lower the cost of insurance then you can do it easily enough by 1. making everyone have it 2. standardize all medical testing IE I payed 500.00 for an MRI and one hospital and 2500.00 at another. 3. standardize billing for all medical facilities 4. Limit rate increases based on costs not CEO pay raises. I still can’t believe a gay website would talk about taxing sex!
schlukitz
@damon459:
I still can’t believe a gay website would talk about taxing sex!
That’s because there is precious little left to tax. ;o)
The government is getting desperate for new income sources to feed the banks with.
Brian Miller
Hehehehe!
The responses to my post have proven my point amply — despite the push by government authorities to regulate sexual practices “to keep costs down,” we’re told that the real totalitarians are those who support choice. 🙂
When President Romney bans gay sex “to keep health care costs down” five years after Obamacare is implemented, this lil libertarian will just be shaking his head saying “I told you so.”
Steph
Steve Buyer recently declared that smoking lettuce was as dangerous as smoking tobacco. He is the recipient of the largest amount of tobacco money of any Congressman in the history of Indiana. He is especially favored by Smokeless Tobacco PACs. He is nothing but a spokesperson for his corporate donors. He’s the same guy who said we should use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and who lied to Congress that he had been called to active duty in Iraq and then took a 3 week leave of absence at his home.
Peggy
This proposal would be nearly impossible to enforce but if two men are legally ‘married,’ then they should definitely pay higher health insurance premiums. Stats is stats, boys.
schlukitz
@ No. 39 Peggy”
The insurance premiums for two men legally married to each other should be no more or no less than the premiums a legally married man and woman pay.
Heteros bareback too, you know? And they also spread AIDS//HIV as well.
Facts is facts, my dear!