"Frank" wrote in message
...
I am fully aware that "free" health care promotes abuse.

The experience of countries where it is "free" is that it doesn't.

Note for Steve McNicholl - yes I know it's not free. Can we just agree to
call it "free" in the same way as you get highways and a police service for
"free".

It's possible that the lack of abuse is because of the different attitudes
in other countries. In the US, there is more of a tendency to the belief
that people should get what they can pay for, and choice should drive the
design of the systems. In other English-speaking countries, health care in
particular is held as a common good, and you are more likely to hear Joe
Public concerned about "the old people, the poor people" than themselves.
I'm talking about the center of gravity here; of course there are individual
exceptions. As usual, there are these unexamined deep differences that make
the more superficial arguments sound like shouting past each other.

It's also possible that British and Canadian hospitals are so ghastly that
nobody in their right mind would want to spend an unnecessary moment in
them, while Americans are all hypochondriacs who love to spend time reading
magazine in their local hospitotel, and want a fistful of pills every time
they find a speck of wax in their ears or lint in their bellybuttons.

-- David Brooks