Government is the social outcome of the rights to life, liberty, and property. Police and courts (and military forces) exist to protect those rights. When a criminal infringes your right, the legal system administers justice. Armies do this on an international scale.

No rights are infringed if you become ill. There is no one to hold culpable. No one to punish.

Although all socialists think government should provide universal health care because it is important, few people think government should create a universal food program even though eating is important.

Your article was humorous but it clearly illustrates a misunderstanding of the true role of government.

As for the vaunted Canadian system: I paid $8000 more in income tax on the same return I filed in Florida. In Canada, the sales tax is anywhere from 13% to 18%. Gas is a dollar a gallon more expensive. So our free health care is pricey.

Also, we can wait months for MRIs and CAT Scans, but for $1200 we can book one next day in the USA. However, if you think that poor folk get a better deal up here because medicine is socialized you need to know that professional athletes get immediate access to any treatment or test. My son got preferential treatment because he is a medical student. I am glad about that but it isn't fair.

Be careful what you let Obama do to your system. Where will Canadians go for good health care if you become just like us?

I have a great deal of firsthand experience at giving various hospital emergency rooms a once-over...they're right up there with bars and grocery stores as passenger pickup points for cab drivers, especially in the hours after the buses stop running.

Hospital ERs aren't always crowded. That's just your imagination talking. I recommend staying away on weekends. Fri, Sat, Sun., holidays- that's often a mess. The rest of the days/evenings aren't nearly as bad. Early morning hours are the best- like 4am. You may even find yourself with only one or two other patients in the waiting room.

Above all, remember that the staff is in charge of triage. Crowded or not, it's their professional duty to make sure that the most serious cases get seen first. You don't have to worry about the possibility that you're cutting in front of somebody who needs treatment more than you do. The doctors and nurses won't let you do it.

Nothing the matter with having a strong empathetic conscience, as far as I'm concerned. But I'd rest easy on that score, and try to have it looked at asap if the symptoms flare up again. After all, when it comes to diagnosis of an intermittent medical condition, the time to get seen by a physician is when you have the symptoms.

Yeah, you're right. I could go into the emergency room. But, I feel bad about going to the emergency room for something that isn't an emergency. The emergency room is for people with traumatic brain injuries, not itchy elbows, and I don't want to distract the staff from helping people who really need it. Maybe I'm overdoing it there. The VA shrink told me my feelings of guilt over participating in the war come from having an over-active superego. lol. "I'm afraid you're very ill, sir. It seems you have . . . a conscience . . ." I know, I'm digressing. But isn't one of the arguments for socialized medicine that it will alleviate the overuse of emergency rooms?

The points you've attempted to make about the excessive expense of publicly funded health care have already been addressed- and, according to the material, refuted- by the reference links I appended to a previous post in this discussion.

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/30/police/permalink/ca7a5431c7ab615b89f27a55c1385c15.html

[linked at my highlighted screen name, "cabdriver"]

If you care to contest them, I invite you to provide references of your own.

The fact is, I'm open to having my mind changed on this issue. But only by facts, logic, and ethically presented persuasive arguments.

Every I get the rash, I call up the VA and can't get an appointment until a month later, by which time the condition has gone away, only to return again later. So I just have to deal with it. Yes, we need to reform healthcare, but I think examples like this go to show that socialized medicine is not some kind of flawless panacea.

If I'm not mistaken: under single-payer universal health care, you could simply visit any primary care physician at the onset of the rash. Not just VA doctors, anyone.

But the fact is that even under the present status quo of private insurance-mediated health coverage, in many regions of the country, it's very difficult for a patient to obtain an appointment to be seen for a non-emergency condition in less than around 3 weeks.

If it were me, I'd go to a VA Urgent Care Clinic at the first sign of the rash's reappearance (presuming your local one hasn't been closed, that is- although even in that case, you should still be able to find an emergency treatment option for which you can bill the VA.)

You''ll be down the list for triage, which means you'll most likely have a wait in store, but I seriously doubt that they'll turn you away.

ramoncreager: thanks for the succinct summary of the principle of the "tragedy of the commons."

But that isn't how the hard-right economic Libertarians and Republicans view it.

For them, the "tragedy of the commons" consists of the fact that "the commons" might be deemed to exist in the first place.

it must be pointed out that such a system is not without its flaws. I'm actually part of a socialized medical system myself: the VA. It was great when I needed surgery to repair a hernia. The hernia was detected fairly early, before it got really bad, and I was able to get it repaired by a very professional staff at almost no cost ($8 co-pay for pain meds). On the other hand, I suffer from a chronic skin rash which comes and goes (and which started around the time they shot me up with a bunch of vaccines to guard against Saddam's fictional biological weapons, but I digress) and I can never get treatment for it. Every I get the rash, I call up the VA and can't get an appointment until a month later, by which time the condition has gone away, only to return again later. So I just have to deal with it. Yes, we need to reform healthcare, but I think examples like this go to show that socialized medicine is not some kind of flawless panacea.