1 Most of the complainers that I've heard aren't complaining about the care part of "health care", they're complaining about the "paying for it" part of health care. I suspect that wide availability of heath insurance has contributed to the rise of health care costs, and hence the rise in health insurance costs. The waiting period for serious surgery in countries with government health care systems, such as Canada, UK, or Japan is literally a killer. Did you know that well-to-do Japanese go to Phillipines or even Thailand for surgery? (I trust you've already heard about Canadians and British going to US for treatment.) So what to do? Make enough money to get good insurance. Life isn't fair. Government enforced "fairness" is typically lowest common denominator. -Bob

2 How's this for some additional perspective? http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1536556.ece Ivar Bolin spent the final weeks of his life being driven from hospital to hospital, and died in the family cabin while waiting for a cancer operation.

3 Very compassionate. Bascially it's being said that poor people, working class people, people who aren't affluent, really don't deserve to get decent medical care. Yeah, very compassionate.

4 No. What's being said is that health care costs have risen to the point that non-catastrophic care is terribly, terribly costly, and that this reflects manipulation by the government. Most of the cons I know feel we should only "insure" for the potential Big Things (like we do for house fires, and the like), but pay for check-ups and routine tests ourselves. And that if government got out of the game, these routine procedures would be affordable. What is wrong with a population that is willing to pay to get its cars serviced, but not willing to pay for cholesterol tests? Where are our priorities?