On 22/4/2008 9:29 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
> Harry Veeder wrote: > >> If you are opposed to a "free" health care system thean you must have >> been opposed to the "free" interstate highway system. > > Winston Churchill proposed a better analogy for universal free > healthcare. He said it is like the fire department. He said, as I recall: > > * When a house is on fire, the fire department goes at once, without > stopping to ask if the owner is rich or poor. > > * A fire is never voluntary; people do not want their house to burn > down. Disease also strikes at random and the victim does not want or > ask to be sick. > > * It benefits the whole of society to put out fires and cure disease quickly. > > I believe the U.K. adapted universal health care partly as a result > of their experiences in WWII. The problem with that analogy is that healthcare is more than just putting out fires. There is the matter of fire prevention and coping with the after effects of a fire. However, this may explain why health care costs are rising because we demand more from our health care system which was originally designed to cover the costs of emergency management only. Harry
