It's time to put every scrap of energy into enacting universal health coverage that transcends who you know and who you love. This is a waste of time and a side show to the real issue.

Keeping ledgers on how much and when you give to friends is exactly what friends don't do.

or close to ever.

The government ought to get out of the marriage business, not start to intrude on the friend business.

Some people might like this type of thinking, but not me. Like my liquor, I prefer my friendships unadulterated. The law should protect us, but it should remain unwelcome in some parts of our lives. When I am old, if my husband has died and I am still childless, I would like the law to mandate that the state provide for my needs. If the law cares about me, that would be a nice way to show it. A shitty way for the law to demonstrate its love for me is to abandon me in my hour of need under the pretext that my friends are the ones who should be buying my medications and changing my Depends. Ideally, there will be friendships kindled in the abuse-free state-run nursing home that will be mutually sustaining until we die. But the law never has and never will have anything to say about this, because it cannot speak to what it cannot objectify.

I also think this is basically a distraction from the real universal health care issue. Besides, I don't see a "give friends legal rights" movement anywhere--it doesn't look like friends want this to happen. No, this is not a solution to any real problem.

No, there is no need for the government to dwell on friendships. Plus friendships are a lot more fickle than family. There are always the stories of I had a friend for 20 years and then we had a fight and never speak. Now, that certainly happens in families too, but to a much smaller extent and there is always the rest of the family nagging at you to forgive and forget.

Our government sucks, just another way to try to get out of doing for the citizens in need.

Cartman uses his status as Kenny's BFF to get a feeding tube removed from him when he is in a vegetative state. So I think that argues against this concept too.

But, I have to admit, given the subject matter, the "Friends With Benefits" headline was probably the funniest, wittiest header I've ever seen in Broadsheet.

If you have a friend whom you often buy meals or let sleep on your couch, and then you dump that friend, can that friend collect alimony?

Part of the reason I ask is that my friend Bob and I had an alienation of affection due to Bob spending more time hanging out with Skeeter than me. After I saw Bob and Skeeter together bowling, our differences became irreconcilable. Bob and I had a trial friendship separation and arranging paperwork for an annulment of our best-buddy status.

As a single woman in her twenties, I can understand the appeal of friends-as-family. But I can't imagine a situation in which I'd ask a friend to enter into a legal arrangement that bestowed many or all of the rights and benefits of marriage. If I wanted to marry one of my friends I would do it. Similarly, there are already legal vehicles if you'd like to designate someone to make medical decisions for you, or if you'd like a friend to be your partner in a business.

I can only imagine the horror if you and your "friends with benefits" had a falling out. Not to mention the social struggle of choosing which friends to endow with benefits and how you would even bring it up. Unless it's as easy as "friending" people on FaceBook, most people my age won't bother to do it. And if it's that easy the legal problems would be tremendous and eternal. Sorting it out would be about as fun and valuable as getting hit in the face with a bag of cactuses. Anybody who's ever been through a divorce, a bad breakup, or a big fight with a close friend knows what I mean.

What a dreadful idea.

This idea sounds half-baked.

What about power of attorney? What about the names and numbers you put down on those forms at work: In case of emergency, please call__________________________

Relationship: ________________________

What about the forms you get from financial advisors who say "fill this out Just In Case and put it away someplace safe that people know about so if anything happens, they'll know your wishes."

This is unnecessary.

I have actually long believed that the legal institution of marriage (NOT the religious institution, mind you) needs to be done away with and replaced by what I've referred to as a "family registry", but which could easily be called a "long-term-friend registry". What this would do is:

(a) make a clear linguistical separation between the legal institution of marriage and the religious institution.

Many people barely even realize that the two institutions are completely different, which is shown by the fact that they have different truth conditions and different sense relations. This muddies the debate considerably, when one person is attempting to discuss the legal institution, and another person is attempting to discuss the religious institution. This is why we keep having the same debate over and over in every state about same-sex marriage, and it never gets resolved. Until people are clear about which institution they're discussing, it's fruitless to discuss this or any other related issue.

(b) allow people to grant family privileges to a person in a way that is NOT predicated on a sexual relationship.

Basically, the legal institution of marriage involves such things as taxes, finances, etc. None of these things have anything to do with a sexual relationship. So why shouldn't people be able to register, for example, all the members of their friendly long-term household to receive the benefits of a family?