RSSFascinating! I’m reminded of Noam Chomsky’s Manufactured Consent quite a bit lately due to the reckless deplatforming. As a “recovering anarchist,” I sometimes wonder… have I moved right? Or has the left moved left? Thank you for writing!
Dr. Khan –
as a sibling to 2 J.D.’s, only 1 of whom is employed as a lawyer, and possessing a science Ph.D. myself, I agree with many of your points. I quibble with this statement, however – “First, at least for science graduates usually there isn’t a large debt load.” True, there is not a large debt load for the individual Ph.D. holder, but many biomedical Ph.D.s receive federal funding through grants, fellowships etc., and given that the federal government is currently deficit spending, it seems to be that there IS a large debt load – just not owned by the actual Ph.D. holder, but rather the U.S. taxpayers. Current NIH paylines will necessarily diminish the number of applicants graduate schools can fund, and given the glut of bioscience Ph.D.s, this correction is a good thing.
I agree with you. My husband is 54. The health insurance companies consider him “uninsurable” and an “automatic denial”. He pays $1450 a month for a guaranteed issue policy. That is $17,400 a year for one person with a $2500 deductible. That is his only avenue for health insurance. I think that is an unreasonable amount. In order to get on Tennessee’s ACCESSTN, you must “go bare” without health insurance for 3 months. I hear horror stories as well, with people of all ages trying to buy health insurance in the individual market. Conservatives say that they support individuals going in business for themselves, but I don’t see any evidence of it.