Welcome to Gaia! ::

I have a headache. *whine*

Is that your answer to everything? crying

Happy Gaiaversary, Hila! And what a Gaiaversary it was - MC day, to boot. (I think it was MC day the day you joined as well, in fact - when did they change the date from end of month to mid-month?)

Re, healthcare: It's kind of like six of one, half a dozen of the other, though. razz And, in a way, we already have socialized healthcare - no one can be turned away from an emergency room. The problem is, emergency room care is far more costly than a GP, which means that even in countries with a similar standard of care (and, let's be honest - even though the United States is host to many world-class hospitals, the vast majority of hospitals do not fall in that genre), their expenses are often far lower than our average expenses.

(Granted, there's also liability, which is yet ANOTHER thing.)

Would a single-payer system work for the US? Likely not - we already have a huge for-profit infrastructure. But, as I understand, even in countries that are generally single-payer, private insurers also operate and offer faster service than the queues you get with something like Britain's NHS. (Which, from what I've heard, is a ********. I've heard the French actually run theirs better, though.)

MCs - yeah, there needed to be just a sitting rock puppy, but flying rock puppy is almost as good, plus I like pets that crawl up my leg. A similar pose was what made me buy a pora.