just sayin' - what we were given by the dysfunctional Senate might not be perfect but at least it has some major improvements. I'd hate to slide backwards so quickly.

I meant I'd like to add our name to the list of "socialist healthcare".

It's where everything works according to the way Republicans see everything: evolution, economic systems, homosexuality, etc.

We got to talking about this one day. Husband asked her about it and mentioned how "horrible" it must be to get to see a doctor. "Absolutely not!" "What you folks have here in the States is horrible." End of story. The Republican said nothing more.

And who had endless horror stories about the NHS? I thought all Republicans had one of those automatically issued by Party headquarters when they joined.

The difference in quality of life as a whole appears to be better and less stressful because it. And with more dependable mass transit they walk around more, don't develop the couch potato lifestyle and the hassle of maintaining vehicles. What can I say?

They just seem happier. The main complaint appears to be overcrowding, which in some areas seems intense, with lanes on sidewalks and the charge for entering London with a car. They've kept some areas close to nature, or at least the domesticated version. My friends have sent me pictures of their visits to Norfolk Downs, Scotland, Wales, and other lovely places.

Those I know don't seem to be bothered by half of what we are. No going bankrupt because of medical bills and no stigma about receiving government health care which is what we have here. We treat people who are without insurance like criminals here.

An example I've given friends here is about one man who decided to stay at home and take care of his very disabled child, after he and his wife divorced. Did he worry about keeping his home, his child's need for medicine, special supplies, seeing a doctor and the occasional emergency trip for seizures?

No. Did he worry about having an income, being exhausted the point of his own health breaking down as he was providing care 24 hours a day?

No, they gave a salary of sorts for taking care of his son instead of making him a ward of the state, let him pick the respite of HIS choice for a week each month, his vacation so to speak, and even took the child off his hands to go to where he said, for two weeks a year. They gave him a paid vacation!

Anyway, when I explained this to people I know here, their eyes almost bugged out. Here it's all or nothing, put the child in care if you can't afford their medical care and by the way, you're all a bunch of bums. Those who are caregiving at home are dropping dead, those who put their loved ones in care live in a constant state of terror of what the next bunch of greedy Republicans are going to do. Some GOP governors have sent the disabled to homeless shelters, and these are the ones who can't fend for themselves already!

Oh, yeah, that's horrible what's going on in the UK...

But I've lost count of the number of Republicans I've "met" online who, not knowing I was British, tried to bamboozle me with the old "I know a British person and he/she says that hospitals in Britain have bars on the windows and they make you eat rats" bullshit.

Answers all the lies, but that's why Republicans have been trained to NEVER listen to Moore since he's a liar, a communist, fat, blah, blah.

They can't look at him, can't hear him. When he's mentioned they do the Monty Python thing with the fingers making the sign of the cross before their eyes.

We are so brainwashed here against our own interests, it's shocking. But I don't think most people around the planet how intense the propaganda is, how tight the reins on the media voices are.

And part of it, sad but true, is this John Waynish thing about Europeans being weak and kissing the Queen's feet and all of that. We never really got over the spat of rebellion that led to the Revolution. There are times to rebell for a good cause and then it's over. When people stay stuck in that mode, they rebel against logic and common sense, long after the initial cause is over.

I'm not sure if we'll get to where we need to be or if we'll drag the rest of the world down the rabbit hole.

Remember that our country is, more or less, extremely influenced by corporations. It is possible that we could implement a national health care system and that it be a total failure. The fact that it would be implemented in a way that wasn't intended by those that support such a plan will be irrelevant to those that oppose it. They will sing high and loud that Micheal Moore and those like him were wrong and my prediction is that health "care"will be worse then ever.

For those educated in this subject. I mean those that really have knowledge about the way the system should run. I suggest a little caveat with a link to the kinds of systems you'd like to see, not just blindly supporting any system that has a name suggesting that it is a national health care system, when in fact it's some bastardization of what those that support such systems intended.

Just my .02....

I didn't mean to offend you, honestly the first part of my post was to anyone. Some of which understand what I mean and other that do not.

I think that to often people think they have but two choices when in fact there are many many more. There are rights was to do the right thing, and wrong ways. I would really like to see this issue broken down into easy to digest bites, without all the spin.

My instinct is that providing national coverage of healthcare, will in the aggregate, be a positive, but that there will be plenty of flaws as well. Flaws that opponents will be quick to capitalize on confusing the issue.

Americans are far more enamored with the monarchy than Canadians are.

are manufactured by the Koch brothers funded right wing Canadian think tank, the Fraser Institute. They do not come from real Canadians.

... Republicans say such plans are awful because once implemented universal health care becomes permanent proof that conservative dogma is just as empty as their dire warnings about such plans.