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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (6755)	9/17/2001 11:08:25 PM
From: ManyMoose	Respond to of 93284

Thanks for the affirmation. to Message #6755 from Mephisto at Sep 17, 2001 4:04 PM

To: Mephisto who wrote (6755)	9/18/2001 3:53:10 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

The French are issued identity cards which they are suppose to carry with them at all times and the French are often stopped by police and asked to produce those cards,. according to a radio report we heard on our recent mini-vacation to Vancouver, BC, Canada. The French police do not need a serious reason to stop people. Sounds a bit like the NJ State police. In the UK you're not supposed to carry your driver's license with you or [equivelent] car registration. Is that better, worse, or just different. The French police do not need a serious reason to stop people. I don't know what that means. In the US I've been stopped for a burnt out taillight. As a younger person, hitchhiking through the US the police stopped me and searched through my belongings because I had long hair. My son's car was stopped and searched, best we could determine, he fit a "profile". Are these serious reasons. I suppose either my son or I could have objected to the search as a violation of our Constitutional rights. I lived in Canada for 15 years and I can tell you that if you want to see a specialist you may have to wait for weeks and you may need to be referred to a specialist by a GP. That was the policy of my HMO in Maryland; I had to wait weeks just to see the GP and was required to get a referral to a specialist. One Christmas, my wife was having shooting head pains and dizziness; we were concerned she might be having a stroke. Called the emergency number at the HMO there was no answer. We got her to a emergency room where they determined the cause to be high blood pressure [really high]. We subsequently found out that the "emergency number" for the HMO is disconnected during holidays and since my wife didn't die, it wasn't an emergency situation and the HMO health plan didn't cover it; so it became an out of pocket expense.....Rep Dan Burton has his wife taking cancer treatment in Germany. Did you see the case about the man in Florida, where the doctor amputated the wrong leg? Individual cases don't mean much in the overall assessment of a health care system. 85% of the US population is covered by public or private health insurance, that leaves 15% who are not. It's likely that most of those 15% are not quite poor enough to qualify for Medicaid and only get health care in emergency circumstances. Canada pays roughly half of what the US does on a per capita basis for medical care, but has a higher life expectancy. You get to choose which one you prefer, half the cost, higher life expectancy, full coverage of the population and you have to wait for a bed or you can choose the US system. If, in the total, the US system seems better, fine. If Canada wants to increase their per capita expenditure on health care by 50%, they'll likely have a reduced wait in line. It's all about money, how much are you willing to pay for what coverage. Canada could come up with a system that excludes 15% of the population from reasonable access to health care; that would improve the wait times. Would that be an improvement to their health care system? jttmab