 |
| Midwest Chick posted this meme in her Saturday meme dump |
Curiosity piqued, I did a little bit of digging.
On January 1, 2018 California's law decriminalizing of not-informing a sexual partner of a positive HIV status went into effect. Knowingly exposing an uniformed sexual partner had bee a felony punishable by 3-to-8 years in prison but it was downgraded to a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of a six-month jail term.
The logic was that criminalizing not-informing "blamed the victim" and decriminalizing not-informing HIV status brought the penalty for recklessly exposing others to HIV in-line with sharing other sexually transmitted diseases like Gonorrhea and Chlamydia.
The problem I have with that logic is that Gonorrhea and Chlamydia can be treated with $40-to-$200 retail-price drugs and be cured. HIV, most often acquired when the person is 30 +/-5 years is for life and while costs-per-month for anti-virals is highly variable, $3000/month is not unusual...FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.
So, every new case of HIV represents a $1,500,000 bill that will be paid for by the general public through higher healthcare insurance premiums and/or from the public coffers. $1.5M represents 3000 well-baby doctor visits (including Uber rides) that cannot happen because the money was spent on something else. $3000/month would keep 25 diabetic patients in glucose test-strips.
If you go with the estimate of 1,200,000 HIV positive patients in the United States, then $1.5M life-time drug costs tots up to $1.8 TRILLION which is not chump-change.
Can you name any other single willful-event that can cause $1.5M in damages and NOT be charged with a felony? Can you think of any other action that can F-U a person's life as much as learning you are HIV positive and you were never informed of the risk?
Yes...I wholeheartedly believe in monogamy. I do not believe in breaking my skin for tats or to shoot up drugs. I don't approve of men having sex with men. AND/BUT, if reinstating felony penalties for not-informing of HIV status saves one life (or $1.5M) then it is the right thing to do.
Thinking about the cost, what does it cost to keep those guys in jail per month/year? Much more than that I'd bet. And as long as they 're running around spreading the HIV they are reducing the left wing voter numbers and that isn't all bad either. This is a matter of sinners affecting other sinners, not the rest of us. Let them have it. Their lives will be shortened. They will be held accountable.---ken
ReplyDelete