Message text written by "Graham Barden" >Maybe some minimal national healthcare as a floor, < The genereal problem I see with national anything, including healthcare, is that no one seems capable of saying "when". What typically starts as a common-sense approach with appropriate cost-limited benefits eventually spirals into a nightmare. Witness welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., as prime examples. The trouble right now is there are too many Middle Men. It should be self-evident we will never have a "perfect" system. Somewhere, somehow, some people will fall through the cracks. The trick is in coming up with a system where as few people as possible come up short. The more I consider the situation, the _less_ I believe socialized healthcare is the solution. I'm more inclined to think a return to fee-for-service is in order. The only way such a system works, though, is when charities are aggressive about looking out for the indigent. My preference is that government help to support -- through greater tax relief, etc. -- the charitable amongst us all. Expectations that government will _solve_ our problems seem to me to ultimately come up short.... mainly because the government is _us_.... with the exception that it has its own life that requires funding outside of us. Christine B. Myers, M.D. Internal Medicine