Based on the foundations of federalism, why might health care continue to be a deeply debated issue? the debate is over whether the issue should be under federal or state control. politicians argue that no single healthcare program will cover all americans. the debate is over whether health care should affect tax rates. medical professionals are opposed to such a generic program.

Health care has always been a highly debated issue for several reasons. The first one is whether it should be controlled by each state or the federal government and the solution to the debate could be that every state were able to control their local health care programs but with a federal agency to supervise it. This takes us to the next issue; Politicians argue that no single healthcare program will cover all Americans. And they have a valid point, but if every state could create and control their local health care programs, it would be easier to reach a wider number of citizens with a health care program. The next issue of the debate is whether those programs should affect tax rates, and of course they would, but only at a local level, not at the federal level. The last point of the debate is that the medical professionals are opposed to such programs. Of course they are against it, nowadays medical attention costs a fortune, and doctors receive great sums of money for their services. There should be a balance in the cost health care, I am not suggesting that it should be free for everybody, only to the most needed ones.

as university of miami psychologists debra lieberman and adam smith pointed out in a recent article in the journal current directions in psychological science, humans have social and psychological mechanisms to deter incest. with very few exceptions, marriages between brothers and sisters and between parents and their children are verboten in every human culture. the primary psychological anti-incest mechanism is the yuck response. even the idea of sex with their mom or dad, bro or sis is upsetting to most people. the psychologist jonathan haidt has found that nearly everyone is repelled by the prospect of brother-sister sex, even in hypothetical situations in which there is no chance of pregnancy).

the biological cost of incest

this raises an interesting question: just what’s so bad about incest? sure, having sex with your dad or your sister seems gross — but why? some anthropologists have argued that incest taboos are learned social conventions. this explanation, however, doesn’t make sense to me as it does not explain the widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms in creatures ranging from cockroaches to chimpanzees. second, the incest taboo is about as close to a universal law as human moral rules get.

why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human societies? the answer is simple. the problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect.