Roger, I advise you to remove your disdainful reference to port wine stain elimination. I’m undecided on whether insurance companies should be forced to cover this treatment, because it’s expensive and often ineffective, and because as birth defects go this is a relatively mild one. But for those who suffer from them they can be devastating, and I daresay that if you had one, or you had a child born with one, and your insurance company refused to pay for removing it, you’d be upset.

Your flub reminds me of a piece I saw many years ago complaining that not enough government money was going to AIDS research; the writer reported disdainfully that some huge amount, maybe 5 times what was going to AIDS, was going to research into hypertension! (italics and exclamation mark in the original). The writer could not wrap his head around the fact that hypertension is a serious medical issue, that kills far more people a year than AIDS ever will. He obviously thought it just meant people being very tense, and perhaps needing an extra cigarette or drink.