Yup, I know, Bobert. Just as you say. It's a very sad situation.

We have a neocon prime minister in Canada who I am sure would LOVE to dismantle and privatize our public health insurance system...but he doesn't DARE to, because it would be political suicide for him to even attempt it. People here are used to having a socialized health care system, and it has massive public support, so no Canadian politician dares to dismantle it.

Damn good thing! If it wasn't for that system, a lot of people I know who've had illnesses in the family would be homeless now, penniless, living on the street....or dead...my family included (due to illnesses my parents suffered in their last few years of life).

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Akenaton - Interesting stuff you post about the situation in the UK. Seems like a general decline in standards of honesty has gone right through your system there. I wonder where the rot started? And when? There is undoubtedly some abuse of our Canadian public health services too by people who are taking advantage...but it's not something I worry about too much. The main point is, if someone here gets cancer, liver failure, kidney failure, serious injury, etc...the care they need is covered by tax-funded health insurance that everyone pays...and that is the only sane way to do it.

To not do so would be kind of like having a fire department that only responds to calls from rich people whe can PAY BIG BUCKS for a visit from firemen...and lets the other people's houses burn to the ground...because they want you to pay them at least $30,000 on the spot just to make a "house call". That's what would happen if the fire department was a "for profit" organization.

And that would be a blatant crime against humanity, deserving of a violent revolution and the overthrow of the criminals by said humanity.

I think the present social/governmental system in the USA is richly deserving of such an overthrow...but I wouldn't recommend it. The "cure" in such a case would probably turn out to be even worse than the original ailment. Violent revolutions have a way of doing that...and they usually end up killing mostly innocent people.

One exception I'd make to that, though, was Castro's revolution. I think Cuba was way better off having that revolution succeed than they would have been having it fail.