The Alien Welfare State

Tupper

Banded Mongoose
I've been working through the alien books trying to figure out what's going on with some of the material. One thing that seems to be missing in all cases is discussion of welfare: unemployment and health insurance. In particular, I have two questions for wise heads:

1. How does the Zhodani draft work? They don't seem to have any drifter career. Does that mean that you can be drafted multiple times (in imperial society, you can only be drafted once before becoming a drifter).

2. In the core book, when you get injured, you have an option to fix your injuries. Depending on your career, you may get some of this refunded by your employer. How would this work for aliens?

On the latter point, I can see Vargr, Aslan, Zhodani, and Solomani behaving fairly similarly to humans (although for Aslan, one would have to try to map their careers into imperial careers, to figure how much they would be likely to fund). However, Droyne and Hivers seem like they could be ... different. One gets the feeling that Droyne are regarded as fairly expendable by their societies, so I wonder if they could get patched up *at all* if they were injured in their careers.
 
I suspect that the Droyne would be completely pragmatic about it: are you still useful? If not, then you're disposable. If you are, then you'll get patched up - as long as the cost isn't greater than your worth.

Hivers: sure, someone will pay to patch you up, no problem. You'll just owe them a few... favors... for their trouble.
 
Probably because it's resolved on the local or planetary level.

Helps that Interstellar transportation costs would tend to minimize immigration floods to game the system(s).
 
Let's not forget the impact of Autodocs. TL13 device but it functions as a Medic 3 (pg 81 of Central Supply Catalogue) Diagnostic, pharmaceutical and surgical unit all in one. To me it is one of those items that every hospital will want. A must have import item. A ship with an Autodoc could advertise and accept patients for diagnosis and treatment.

Other items that could impact health care on any world are:

Medikits and Mediscanners. At higher tech level the Medikit gives a 3D image of the patient.
Panacea: 200 Credits for a wide sprectrum get better pill
Slow Drug: 500 credits for a months worth of healing in a day. A cooling system is recommended.

So a Starport Hospital could have a patient arrive, be checked out in the autodoc, diagnosed, scanned , given drugs and then put in a cooler for a day and be fine the next morning for the cost of?? A couple of thousand credits?
Autodocs only have a 1 person capacity, so a Doctor with a Mediscanner could replace the Autodoc in step one, and put the person into a low berth chamber for a day. Multiple Low berths would allow multiple trauma victims to get the 1 month healing per day benefit.
 
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Insured.


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Uninsured.
 
In the Imperium you can only "choose" the draft once but you can be additionally drafted by events. Its in the errata:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KGXOR7pGnJBv-Qx_TvFbXrndZRHg9BDMNtljJrI-t58/edit#heading=h.gs35dsc8swl5
 
Tupper said:
One thing that seems to be missing in all cases is discussion of welfare: unemployment and health insurance.

Why are you assuming medical care in human societies 5,600 years in the future, and alien societies, would function like the United States circa 2021 AD? "Health Insurance" is an American concept, a lot of other modern Earth societies really don't have an equivalent.

It wouldn't be an Imperium-wide thing: it would probably be handled at the local/planetary level. How it would be handled would depend on the society's Tech level (i.e. cost of medical care), government structure, and the society's general attitude towards the value of sophont life vs. profit. Societies that value profit would tend towards the "pay money or die" medical care model, while societies that value sophont life would tend towards some sort of universal health care system, but there are infinite variations possible.
 
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