Ha! The same exact thing is true of my insurance here in the States! And for this my employer pays $4000 a year. and it's considered one of the best plans in the region.

"In terms of archeology and anthropology, it is scarcity itself that drove the advent of civilization.

"I bring this up to highlight the fact that the 'gap between rich and poor' is something of a straw man."

"1. I haven't looked into examples of it enough to confirm or deny its existence. I should, and if it is a documented/admitted strategy, shame...

Yeah- one fifteen word anecdote just won this whole thread! You're like a modern Cicero, dude!

"It seemed to me that President Obama's original plan of having an optional government-run not-for-profit public health plan that is open to citizens of all income levels and funded by its own premiums would have provided just the kind of true competition needed to drive down costs of other health plans."

"it's pretty clear that a government-run health care system with even broader responsibilities than SS or M/M, such as Sweden's, would be incredibly expensive."

"You can see in your own country that the taxes needed to fund universal health care kill the middle class. They are so heavily taxed they can't do more than just survive."

"saving up money to use just-in-case you someday might need to buy your own health insurance if you get laid off and then get cancer is incredibly difficult. Is it the smart thing to do? Probably."

"If she had developed cancer 6 months earlier, she'd have been fine."

"By relying on private insurance, whose shareholders interests are at the forefront, you open yourself to exorbitant premiums. That is a burden to people, not paying flat premiums through a government run healthcare. In the end, many people end up paying much less than they would have otherwise."

"And of course there are those in this country who want to let her just die."

I'm familiar with the stigma of psychotherapy as feminine (and thus weak), but not with the gender implications of anti-depressants. I can haz enlitunments, plz?

No, I'm for keeping characters fresh. I've gone on at great length in recent io9 comments about that.

Yes, improving access to primary care will actually reduce the need for greater interventions.

I hold on fiercely to the fact that I was REALLY unhappy at the first looks we got of Ledger.

The Right Wing has been working hard to bring about conditions that ensure America swings hard to the left.

US health care is some of the best in the world. if you can afford it, and fewer and fewer of us can. Your Swedish friend's Mom had the means to get the surgery. Many, many Americans don't. And either she paid out of pocket, which you can do in Sweden, or she was lucky that her insurance covered that surgery-…

"Some of us have kind of noticed, though, that government entities are almost uniformly poorly run, way behind the times, almost never innovative, extremely wasteful, and have astonishingly poor customer service. My family members forced to deal with US military health care have suffered greatly."

I'd just like to see a system where everybody gets decent treatment, and we're miles from that. The rich will always be able to get the best.