100
User voted Yes.
1 vote
Apr 19, 2015

If you believe that an adult has the right to do to their body whatever they wish, then you should allow them to buy and use whatever they wish. That's what this question is really asking, do you have the right to put into your body anything you wish?

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50
User voted No.
main reply
2 votes,
Apr 20, 2015

Bacteria and virus are able to adapt to medication if not used wisely.

It is not about the right to put whatever we want in our body, it is about the efficiency of treatments and by extension, the survival of mankind.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
Apr 27, 2015

Well, there isn't much you can do to a virus, bacteria have always been adapting and always will and while misuse of medication can cause bacteria to become resistant, the only thing you're doing by restricting the use of medication is slowly down how fast it happen. In fact with all the anti-bacterial things we are currently using that aren't needed is causing bacteria to become resistant at a faster rate, so are you willing to ban anti-bacterial items (gels, food trays, sprays) for the same reason? And mankind isn't in any real danger as we've survived bacteria and viruses for many many years. Yes it might make a difference in this or that person but mankind as a whole will survive.

Again the real question is can you put in your body whatever you want?

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100
1 vote,
May 3, 2017

Will everyone be willing to take responsibility for putting whatever they want in their bodies? If someone takes something harmful or takes so much of a medication that it becomes harmful, will he/she take financial responsibility for their health care when he/she becomes severely debilitated and needs constant care? Will he/she make provisions for the children he/she brought into this world and can no longer take care of?

Will he/she take precautions to make sure he/she doesn't harm anyone else while under the influence of a mind-altering substance? People can become pretty violent on PCP for example, and there are a whole lot of things that will mess up your ability to drive or operate heavy machinery.

And how will that work with employment? As it is, we have to make people take random drug tests to make sure they're not flying planes or driving buses while drunk. Will employers or employees have to foot the bill for the whole battery of drug tests people will have to pass to make sure they are not high on whatever they want to put in their bodies?

Controlled substance laws are only partly intended to protect you from you. The other part is protecting the rest of us from you and from having to take care of you when you permanently mess yourself up.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
May 20, 2017

I have said in other posts, not this one, that if you use something you can't use diminished capacity as a defense. After all they took said drug knowing it would do something. BTW I include alcohol in that also, hurt someone while driving drunk, you can't say I was drunk and I'm not responsible, sorry that's not an excuse.

As far as employment, most jobs that involve heavy machinery, driving, flying, and many that don't already have drug testing. In my job, I'm randomly tested as do most other jobs. so really it's a non-issue. DOT, FAA, etc all require drug test.

"Controlled substance laws are only partly intended to protect you from you."

And that logic could be used to ban almost anything, you can't drive a motorcycle, because of the danger involved, and it increased medical cost. Can't mountain climb, skydive, swim, can't drink soft drinks, eat certain foods, etc. after all we are only trying to protect you from yourself.

" The other part is protecting the rest of us from you and from having to take care of you when you permanently mess yourself up.'

See my response to noah364, basically if you didn't set up a plan ahead of time, you die. Sorry, but if you are an adult and don't have insurance to cover whatever you decided to do, you can't expect the rest of use to pay for your care.

Basically this comes down to freedom, are you and adult and are free to do things that aren't healthy, that might hurt or kill you or should the government, be your mommy and daddy and tell you no.

edit side to said sorry

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0
0 votes,
May 21, 2017

"And that logic could be used to ban almost anything, you can't drive a motorcycle, because of the danger involved, and it increased medical cost. Can't mountain climb, skydive, swim, can't drink soft drinks, eat certain foods, etc. after all we are only trying to protect you from yourself."

What we're talking about here is using prescription drugs without having the knowledge that a doctor or pharmacist would have. It would be more analogous to grabbing a parachute and jumping out of a plane without taking skydiving lessons, or getting on a motorcycle and taking to the streets without a helmet and without having so much as practiced riding said motorcycle in a parking lot, let alone having taken a safety course---or passed a test for a license. All of the things you mentioned can be done safely with proper knowledge and preparation. What we're talking about in this discussion is removing the knowledgeable experts from the equation. Doctors and pharmacists study for years to develop their knowledge and even then are not allowed to prescribe for themselves. You want people to just be able to go to the store armed with the "knowledge" that they received from a website or no knowledge at all and buy any drug they want? You don't see how dangerous that is?

Also, my point about the drug testing is that the testing would have to be way more expansive and probably more expensive. Companies would have to do tests for a much broader range of substances that could have mind-altering effects.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
May 21, 2017

"...analogous to grabbing a parachute and jumping out of a plane without taking skydiving lessons, or getting on a motorcycle and taking to the streets without a helmet ..."

All which you could do legally. You could jump out of an airplane with a parachute you found in the trash, you could jump on a Kawasaki Ninja H2R, with a top speed of over 249 and as long as you're not on public road you wouldn't need a driver licenses or a helmet or leathers. Personally I wouldn't do either but you could and do so legally.

"... safely with proper knowledge and preparation."

And you could also do the same with drugs, or you could consult a Doctor who may recommend what drugs to take and you could just walk in and ask for them without a prescription. Just like I consult experts on construction, what make you think most people wouldn't consult a Doctor before asking for certain drugs. After all most don't get you high they treat a condition.

They really would have to do anymore testing than what they do now, just like they can't test all drugs against all combinations of various drug(s) / supplements, they would continue to hit the most likely combinations of drugs and leave it at that until the reports started coming in about x drug reacting badly or nicely with their drug.

Right now you could grow and use monkshoods (Aconitum) Saint John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum), and many other herbs without restriction and without, in many cases, breaking the law to treat what you think you might have. But really in the end are you as an ADULT responsible for YOU, or do you need/want the government to take care of you? I see this as a freedom issue, I am an adult I don't want or need the government to be my mommy or daddy.

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0
User voted No.
0 votes,
May 24, 2017

If this were just adults being responsible for themselves, and their actions had zero repercussions on anyone else, then I would completely agree with you.

But this hypothetical doesn't exist in a vacuum. If you mess up by taking medicine imporperly and hurting yourself it might be my healthcare bill that goes up.

It works on the same principle of American's healthcare's primary problem: the poor can't afford to see a doctor, so when they get sick they wait until the very last minute and then use the emergency room as their primary care facility. The doctors in the ER aren't just going to let someone die because they can't pay, so they save their life, often at great expense.

But again, this person was poor in the first place. They couldn't pay for preventative care, much less for pricy ER care. But the hospital isn't just going to eat that cost. So they pass the costs on to the middle and upper classes to regain lost money.

That means that my healthcare bill and your healthcare bill goes up because the people who can't pay get sick.

Now imagine if that poor person could take any prescription drug they wanted. Now keep in mind, they still can't afford to consult a doctor, but if they can get their hands on those drugs (through legitimate means or not), then maybe, if they do enough research, they can treat themselves.

Except, of course, they won't. There's a reason why we have doctors go through almost a decade of schooling before handing them patients. The human body is complicated, as is disease, and nobody can safely treat themselves simply by doing research on the internet.

So if/when a poor person ends up getting sick because they took a drug improperly, then when they have to go to the ER, there's yet another way for me to loose money because of their mistake.

Obviously, this is largely speculation, but logically, this seems like a likely scenario. Should all prescription drugs become legal without a prescription, then it stands to reason that the people who would use them improperly the most are A) people who don't actually have the condition, but rather are chasing a side effect (like being high) or, more importantly, B) people who try to treat themselves because they are unable to afford a doctor.

In both scenarios, the people using a drug without a prescription aren't just hurting themselves, they're hurting everyone else through increased healthcare costs. As for the people with a prescription who are using the drug properly, well, obviously legalization of the drug without a prescription is irrelvent to them, because they have the medicine they need either way.

This dort of ties to a larger point about Libertarianism in general. In principal, I agree with it. You should be able to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect anybody else. But that's idealistic; that's not how the world works. Actions don't exist in a void. They have consequences, often indirect ones, that affect everyone else around you. That's just a part of living in a society.

And that's my point in a nutshell, in regards to this medicine debate. In a perfect world an individual's stupidity is their prerogative. But this isn't a perfect world, and their stupidity is probably going to hurt someone else too.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
May 24, 2017

Sorry for the long response.

“If this were just adults…..”

There is almost nothing you do that has zero repercussions on someone else, so it would better to say minimal repercussions on someone else.

“… hurting yourself it might be my healthcare bill that goes up.”

Again that could be said of just about anything, we could require a license for anything you wish to do to prove you know what you’re doing, prove you know all the health and safety for running a grill and we’ll give you a license so you could cook outside. (16,900 people went to emergency rooms because of a BBQ accident in 2012). And even when we give people license and or training they still manage to hurt themselves, there were 20-50 million people injured or disabled as the result of car accidents and most people driving have a license and or training (not counting the people who were killed). But to bring it closer to home, 5% of US adults who seek outpatient care will experience a diagnostic error. Diagnostic errors are thought to contribute to 10 percent of US patient deaths and 17 percent of adverse events in hospitals

All of which increase your healthcare costs.

“…the poor can't afford to see a doctor, so when they get sick they wait until the very last minute and then use the emergency room as their primary care facility. The doctors in the ER aren't just going to let someone die ..”

The whole US healthcare debate is a whole other story; see my other responses in this thread. But in a nutshell there was a plan that would have offered coverage to everyone who wanted it, if they decided they didn’t want it they couldn’t expect someone else (ie you through higher fees) to pay for it. So it would have been up to the hospital and doctors if they would treat people without insurance or who couldn’t pay up front.

“Now imagine if that poor person could take any prescription drug they wanted…”

An just how would they pay for it, they’re poor. Of course it don’t stop some of the poor from taking illegal drugs.

“There's a reason why we have doctors go through almost a decade of schooling..”

See above.

“Obviously, this is largely speculation,..”

Given that most prescriptions drug won’t get you high it’s not logical to say someone would be chasing a high.

“..people who try to treat themselves because they are unable to afford a doctor.”

That is part of the healthcare debate, let’s do a little though experiment. Say as an adult you could buy any legal drug (you can buy just about any illegal drug you want at almost any time) and assume that you are too poor to see a doctor, and you don’t have internet, and the druggist refuses to help you in anyway. How would you even know what drugs to ask for? Even with the internet, there may be several conditions that fit you symptoms, but there are generally tests that would point you to the right drug. Now say I was very poor and couldn’t see a doctor and I found out I had diabetes, the test for which isn’t that expensive, and some of the medication isn’t that expensive, would it be better for me to treat myself or go untreated? For every example you could put up showing an increase in healthcare cost I could show an example where it would lower it.

“…In a perfect world an individual's stupidity is their prerogative….”

I believe in personal freedom, that as an adult you are free to be as stupid as you wish, thus being able to purchase without a prescription any legal drug, should be your right. A wise person would seek the advice of someone who’s trained, a foolish person wouldn’t. Really the argument you’re putting forth could be used to ban or require a license for almost anything. The healthcare debate is really separate from this question. Maybe a better question would have been “ As an adult should you be able to buy ANY drug you wish?”, and even then I’d say yes. Freedom comes responsibility, and if you don’t want the responsibility then you shouldn’t be free.

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0
User voted No.
0 votes,
May 25, 2017

"Sorry for the long response."

Not at all a problem! I appreciate when someone take the time to write an in-depth response.

"Again that could be said of just about anything..."

There is a vast, vast difference between operating a grill and taking prescription drugs. We don't license for people to use grills because we correctly assume that the average person can operate one correctly without endangering themselves or others. That assumption is not the same with prescription drugs where we presume the exact opposite, that the average person doesn't have the ability to utilize them correctly without danger. In that sense prescription drugs fall into the same category as planes, cars, and guns. We assume that you can't just "figure it out" safely on your own, so we as a society require some sort of barrier entry (often in the form of a license).

And as to your point about car crashes, how much higher do you think that 20-50 million number would be if we didn't require licensing? Humans make mistakes, there's no avoiding that. But through training we can still lower the number of mistakes. The fact that mistakes still occur isn't an argument against eliminating the system entirely.

Along that same line of thought, yeah, 5% of people are diagnosed incorrectly. But that's an inherent problem with doctors also being human beings. Do you think that the untrained everyman would do any better? Quite likely, they'd do far, far worse, and end up hurting themselves due to a false diagnosis far more often than doctors do.

Look, I get it. Shit happens. That's part of life. But the fact that shit happens is not an argument against allowing shit to happen that could easily be avoided.

"Given that most prescriptions drug won’t get you high it’s not logical to say someone would be chasing a high."

True, but hence why my argument focuses very little on the aspect of getting high.

"and you don’t have internet, and the druggist refuses to help you in anyway."

Neither the internet nor the pharmacist at CVS are adequate substitutes for a doctor who went to medical school. Even if you have internet and a druggist who genuinly cares about helping you, you could very easily end up with an incorrect diagnosis and the wrong medication.

"there are generally tests that would point you to the right drug."

We're assuming that the individual knows how to both implement and read this test correctly, which they probably don't.

"would it be better for me to treat myself or go untreated?"

As a society, we shouldn't force people to have to make that decision. There should be some sort of safety net to ensure that poverty isn't a death sentence if you get sick. Because trying to treat yourself for diabetes can be as deadly as not treating it at all.

Take too much insulin, you die.

Take not enough insulin, you die.

Fail to store the insulin correctly, you die.

And that assumption that I just made illustrates another core problem. If you found out you had diabetes, you might default to what you think you should do rather than what you should do. People with diabetes take insulin, right? Then I should take insulin, because I have diabetes. When in reality, for most people in most cases, simple lifestyle changes like diet and excersise are all that's necessary for effective treatment. If you start to take insulin, then you'll be subjecting yourself to unnecesary risk.

It's not a matter of "treated or untreated." As your own 5% statistic showed, being treated incorrectly can be as dangerous as not being treated at all.

"But in a nutshell there was a plan that would have offered coverage to everyone who wanted it, if they decided they didn’t want it they couldn’t expect someone else (ie you through higher fees) to pay for it. So it would have been up to the hospital and doctors if they would treat people without insurance or who couldn’t pay up front."

That certainly sounds like an excellent plan, but again, we run into the problem of doctors being human. If a man staggers into a hospital with a gunshot wound, and answers "no" when asked if he's covered by insurance, the doctors aren't going to go "Well, better go sign up with Cigna quick before you bleed out." People, especially doctors, don't just let other people die because of insurance. So my guess is that, even if hospitals had the option to refuse treatment to people in dire need of care, most wouldn't, and the problem remains the same. That lost money has to be regained somewhere for the hospital lights to stay on.

"And just how would they pay for it, they’re poor."

It's more than plausible that a person could afford invidual doses of drugs without being able to afford a doctor or health insurance.

"Really the argument you’re putting forth could be used to ban or require a license for almost anything. "

Not really, I'm advocating for barriers against allowing people to use something that they almost definitely don't understand. It's the difference between giving a cave man a bow and arrow or a gun. Sure, both can be used to hunt, but with the latter he's far more likely to shoot himself in the foot because he doesn't know what's going on.

Remember, there was a time when we as a society allowed people without legitimate scientific and medical training to perform medicine. That was a time when leeches were considered a legitimate cure (obviously that's hyperbole, but I thought it was a nice quip, so I couldn't resist).

But there's one more reason as to why we shouldn't let people purchase and take any medication that they want, by far the most important reason. Antibiotics. The results of the development of antibiotic resistant superbugs could mean for humanity at best widespread disease and at worst decimation of our population. They are one of the few existential threats to society as we know it, a disease that cannot be fought off by medicine. They already kill 700,000 peopole every year.

Antibiotics are already being prescribed by doctors copiously and irresponsibly, and are being administered to livestock indiscriminantly. These substances need to be tightly controlled to prevent potential disaster.

Which definitely does not mean allowing anybody to buy them. Antibiotics feel like a one-size-fits-all solution if you're feeling down, but I don't trust that the average American can even so much as tell the difference between a viral infection or a bacterial one (or, if they did, know enough to realize that antibiotics do nothing against viruses). We need to be living in a world where, if you get a bacterial infection and can fight it off and return to full health in reasonable time, you shouldn't hace access to antibiotics.

Not a world where you pick up antibiotics from the corner store in order to be back to work on Tuesday rather than Friday.

Because that goes beyond healthcare costs going up or down. That is a legitimate danger to everyone.

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0
User voted Yes.
0 votes,
May 27, 2017

Nice read, and I won’t bother trying to answer point by point, because it would be a very long post, so I’ll try and hit what I consider the highlights.

“There is a vast, vast difference between operating a grill..”

In my state you don’t require a license for a gun and this year my state will allow carry and conceal without a license. But we do have a measure of accidents rate where in some cases licenses are required and in some cases not. We have ultra-light aircraft, which don’t require a license and general aviation that does. Number of ultra-lights registered (all numbers 1996) 4070, number of accidents 28, number of deaths 4 (8 in 1995) general aviation 21,089 number of accidents 335 deaths 43. True they didn’t show the number of hours flown, so I do have some problems with their numbers, a better measure would have been flight hours. But given the safety of both general aviation and grilling wouldn’t it make sense to require a license for grilling?

“As a society, we shouldn't force people..”

That’s really a healthcare debate, should we cover everyone, if so how to paid for it and what’s covered. Remember all healthcare is rationed. It’s a matter of how you ration it. Some countries have basically “free” (nothing is free, but paid by the taxpayer) healthcare but have waiting list where you could die waiting for treatment (If you really want to see government run healthcare look into Indian Health Service, just remember don’t get sick after June) indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/dont-get-sick-after...dian-healthcare/

Or do you ration it by who can pay?

“Take too much insulin, you die….”

Drink too much water and you die, drink too little water and you die. Store food wrong and you could die. There are many, many things that can kill you, if you take too much or too little.

“…If a man staggers into a hospital with a gunshot wound, and answers "no”..”

Assuming it wasn’t during the transition period; the hospital/doctor could treat or refuse to treat the man, cold true. But the man decided he didn’t want health coverage and that would be the consequences of his actions. Given that the hospital/doctor would have to do it for free, given we would track the cost of all hospital/doctor charges, the hospital/doctor would have to get money from a charity.

That was part of the carrot and stick, you can’t decide that you don’t want coverage and expect other to pay if and when you needed healthcare, and given that only a fixed percentage of your income would go to healthcare, there would be no good reason not to get it, but if you decided not to, you take the risk of dying.

Really, I see this as a freedom issue, and while you do make some good points, to me it come down to this, do you own you? I can prove you don’t own your own body, (try selling an organ or the organ of someone who’s dead, organs would have value if the government would let you sell them). Can you, as an adult, do things that are bad, or in some cases good for you? I’ve said many times as an adult you should be allowed to put into your body anything you wish, to do whatever you wish, as long as you don’t infringe on someone’s rights. As a conservative, I want the smallest government possible with as much freedom as possible. That also mean I MUST take responsibility for my actions good, bad or otherwise.

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0
User voted No.
linked reply
0 votes,
May 28, 2017

"Really, I see this as a freedom issue, and while you do make some good points, to me it come down to this, do you own you?"

This is one of the major areas where liberals and conservatives are in almost complete agreement. It informs the liberal debate about gay rights and abortion, and drives the bipartisan opposition to government surveillance.

"to do whatever you wish, as long as you don’t infringe on someone’s rights"

But that's where we have some differences. Because individuals, this hypothetical "you," does not exist in a void. Everything we do affects other people. If I fill myself up with vodka and get behind the wheel of a car "technically" I'm doing nothing to anybody but myself. It's my own body that I'm getting drunk, my own car that I'm driving, and my own life I'm putting in danger. That is, until my foolishness kills someone else. Obviously, this debate isn't as extreme (you're not killing the other, just increasing their medical bills), but the central point remains. Do whatever you want as long as your actions don't affect anyone else, but in this case, your actions affect everyone else, because as I said, you don't exist in a void.

And there are a couple of solutions to this. Yours is to let the man with the gunshot wound die. I can complain about healthcare costs all I want, but I'm can't see that as a solution.

Because not getting insurance, out of stupidity and/or poverty, shouldn't equate to a death sentence. That demonstrates a lack of compassion and human empathy that has no place within a human society.

So, from my perspective at least, that leads to the question as to how we can mitigate costs to the individual while still not letting people suffer or die.

And that's the healthcare debate. Yes, I know it's a completely separate discussion, and one I don't really want to delve into full-on here, but it's intrinsically tied to the discussion at hand. Our current system doesn't work. At all. We pay more in this country, both as individuals and in GDP, for our healthcare in this country than almost any other developed country in the world...and the healthcare we receive is astoundingly mediocre.

A universal health care system, when it works, provides both better care and cheaper care than what we have now. The liberals are happy because everyone is taken care of. The conservatives are happy because we're saving money. The Americans are happy because they're receiving better healthcare.

But that's when it works. You threw out the example of India, but I would say that India is a country of one billion people where a significant percentage still don't have access to running water or electricity. I would throw out the example of Canada, which has the population of a large state (this could be done on a state-by-state basis), and where the system works very well. You'd throw out another example of where it doesn't work. I'd throw out another example of where it does. I've had these debates before; they go back and forth like this, and ultimately turn into an unproductive debate of "what country are we the most similar to?"

The bottom line is that we won't know if it will work here before we try it here. If we do it state-by-state (presumably starting in my home state of California), then we wouldn't have to throw all of our chips into the pot as a country before testing the waters. And here's the other bottom line: it can't get much worse than what we already have.

When it comes down to it, our differences of opinion are firmly rooted in our individual philosophies, which we're not going to change in an internet debate. Because I believe that everyone is inherently interconnected, and because I'm not willing to have a system where we simply allow people to die or suffer when they could be saved, I want a system where my liability for others is mitigated through preventative care and regulation to prevent people from hurting themselves in blatantly obvious ways (keep heroin illegal, for example). Though I agree that you should have maximum personal freedom, I believe that that personal freedom hits its maximum as soon as it starts to hurt everyone else. Your priorities are different, prioritizing individual freedom over societal well-being. And that's ok. Neither philosophy is inherently better than the other. But it's good that our two sides have discussions like these to understand each other better.

I apologize, but as school wraps up I don't have the time to continue this debate. Thank you for your courtesy and thoughtfullness. I hope you got as much out of this discussion as I did.

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User voted Yes.
0 votes,
May 28, 2017

I understand school, life etc. so I’ll keep this really short, and I won’t be offended if you don’t answer.

“Everything we do affects other people. If I fill myself up with vodka..”

Let’s assume for a moment we did away with all drunk driving laws, etc. and you went out and killed or hurt someone. The way I see the world is that you’d be charged with second degree murder, (19 – 35 years on the federal level or 10 to 65 years on the state level) as you couldn’t use diminished capacity as a defense. After all you knew before you started drinking that it would affect you. That falls under freedom but responsibility.

" …your actions affect everyone else, because as I said, you don't exist in a void.”

While there are many things you can do that doesn’t affect anyone else, the better word would be minimal affect other people, as long as you didn’t interfere with their rights.

“Yours is to let the man with the gunshot wound die...”

But that was HIS choice. He decided not to get health insurance (assuming it was at some reasonable cost) that goes back to freedom and responsibility. He had the freedom to make a bad choice, and it’s his responsibility to accept the good and bad outcomes of his action.

“Our current system doesn't work. At all…”

Hate to say it does but it does work, if you really need healthcare, you can walk into any emergency room and get treatment, they can’t currently turn you away. Is it the most cost effect way to provide healthcare, probably not, but in counties with universal healthcare they have waiting list. (11.1 weeks in Canada for a MRI) Etc

Sorry it wasn’t India, it was Indian (ie native Americans, it’s run by the US government)

“The bottom line is that we won't know if it will work here before we try it here...”

Given that you may have misread my post, the healthcare system is FREE and run by the US government. Sorry if I wasn’t clear. Read the article I linked too and see what government run healthcare would really look like.

“Thank you for your courtesy and..”

My pleasure, it was a very nice discussion and while we might not agree on everything, I’m more than willing to bet we could find some compromise that we could live with.

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