caterpillarcowboy:

This doesn’t happen already? Aren’t African-Americans more at risk for heart disease? Don’t older people have higher premiums than younger people?

This is a key example. African Americans are at higher risk for heart disease but are not, to my knowledge, charged higher premiums. Older people are generally charged higher premiums by private health insurance companies, but when they turn 65 their premiums are magically subsidized by the government.

So we’ve decided to socialize risk associated with race, gender and sexual orientation but not age. I used the term “protected class” at one point because it was easy short-hand for what’s going on. But the analogy is clearly imperfect.