The question about costs is fairly overblown. We are citizens (as far as I can tell from the contributors) of civilized countries. Taxes, etc., are designed to pool our resources to do things together that we can't do as well separately. Health care, for a variety of reasons, is one of those things (it is not a commodity, and often not a service one is seeking voluntarily, so standard economics has problems marketising it in the most efficient way). None of us is getting any younger. So why not spend it on something that we benefit greatly from, i.e. health care? It seems to me to be a good way to spend our money!! My objection is that the current medical system is doing jobs that should be taken over by a decent public system of care for the elderly. Hospital beds and emergency rooms are being used as eldercare centres -- this is crazy, and shows no signs of stopping. I spend a lot of time in hospitals, and it is a terribly wasteful use of their resources. yours, Peter T.
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