""Our government is not omnipotent, our elected representatives are supposed to work for us, we do not work for them. I think this difference accounts for the frustration many of our friends across the pond experience when it comes to debating US politics.""

Your total ignorance of just about everything that goes on outside your blinkered and sheltered existence, is astonishing.

Our government too is not omnipotent.

Our health care is funded as a result of a consensus of opinion which recognises the benefits of donating a small proportion of our income to healthcare (about one tenth of what you pay), so that everybody gets needed treatment without having to pay at the point of receipt.

Nobody in the UK goes bankrupt trying to pay for healthcare.

Nobody is excluded, because they turn up at the hospital without their credit card, or insurance policy.

Nobody is excluded because they had a pre-existing case of acne twenty five years ago.

Nobody is excluded because their newly acquired disease will need long term care.

In fact, NOBODY is excluded!!!

Now, what were you saying about freedom?.......Oh YES! Freedom for the Well Off, The Well Connected, and the Well Employed, but, and it's a big but, what happens when you lose your job, or get too sick to work?

Your attitude finally changes!!.....THAT'S WHAT!!

I find myself kind of looking forward to the day when you become one of the "losers" you refuse to help because it might cost you a few dollars.

That's why your country isn't free, isn't a democracy, and isn't fully civilised. Because you won't let it be any of those things.

Don T.