Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Survival (1971).

Here.

Here.

To the Editor:

As a feminist, I find it supremely sad to read article after article about a so-called issue that should be no issue. If what women wear, or don’t, brings the “soul of France” into question, as Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extreme-right National Front, has argued, that soul is extremely vacuous. Women are now being almost forcibly stripped and fined on France’s beaches.

I call on all feminists to adopt the burkini and the hijab in support of our Muslim sisters. And I call on the media and politicians to focus on the very real major issues of our time.

ELIZABETH EASTMOND

New York

Note from KBJ: I join Elizabeth Eastmond's call for feminists to cover their bodies.

Consequentialists disagree about which consequences are important—the classic utilitarians Bentham and Mill argued that pleasure is the only value, and that we should maximise pleasure. Some contemporary consequentialists think that the classic utilitarians were right about this, but others argue that what matters is the satisfaction of preferences, or a list of objective goods, such as truth and beauty; and some consequentialists are pluralists about the good, arguing that all of these things are good, and it may not be possible to order them precisely. Most consequentialists think that we should aim for the best outcome, but some think that we should aim to bring about an outcome that is ‘good enough’. Then there are various complex and more or less technical issues about how we add up the value in consequences: should we look at the average or the total? And how should we deal with probability? (we can’t know what the consequences of our actions will be in advance, so we have to use some account of probable consequences in deciding what to do).

(Elinor Mason, "What Is Consequentialism?," Think 21 [spring 2009]: 19-28, at 21)

The History Mix Volume 1 (1985).

Here.

Scott Adams analyzes the mud fight between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “U.S. Prepares Enrollment Push as Insurers Balk on Health Law” (front page, Aug. 18):

How many times must it be demonstrated that health care cannot be treated like any other market commodity before our legislators get the point? This article once again confirms that affordable health care can’t be delivered using a private, for-profit system.

One cannot make a profit insuring sick people. Therefore, health insurance companies are most profitable when they avoid sick people while continuing to collect premiums from healthy customers. When this does not work, raising prices is necessary to keep profits up.

But health insurance premiums are already unaffordable for most of us. That is why the young and healthy are not buying. The only way to make health care affordable is to have everyone paying into the pot in proportion to their income while eliminating the unnecessary expensive middleman: health insurance companies.

Must we wait until only the billionaires will be able to afford health care before we join all the other industrialized countries and switch to such a government-funded single-payer system (Medicare for All)?

ELIZABETH R. ROSENTHAL

Larchmont, N.Y.

The writer is a dermatologist.

Note from KBJ: If you like the Department of Motor Vehicles, you'll love single-payer health care.