[george wythe]

Suppose that you were subject to, say, horrendous sinus infections or earaches. In America, by law you would have to get an appointment with a doctor, $75, thank you-when he had time, how about day after tomorrow, whereupon he would give you a prescription for amoxicillin, fifteen bucks and a trip to a pharmacy. If this happened on a Friday, you would either slit your wrists by Saturday evening to avoid the torture, or go to an emergency room, however distant, where they would charge you a fortune and give you a prescription for amoxicillin.

In Mexico, upon recognizing the familiar symptoms, you would go to the nearest farmacia and buy the amoxicillin. The agony would be nipped in the bud (presuming that agony has buds). The doctor would not get $75, which is against all principles of medicine. The pharmacist would not lose his license, as he would in the United States.

That's the way it was I visited France also on a college vacation. I got s minor intestinal infection by eating something no good, and I went to the nearest pharmacie and got an antibiotic in capsule form, after telling the pharmacist that I did not want the suppository form ;-)

[Middle Man]

On trips to England I have used the National Health Service. I am not for socialized medicine but have to say about countries like Britain and Japan: At least they get something back for all the taxes they pay!

We Americans get nothing, plus our state-of-the-art defense systems can't even stop the occasional ragtag terrorist cell armed with box cutters, except to make air travel even more miserable for us.

[Ignatz]

after telling the pharmacist that I did not want the suppository form

France, eh? The pharmacist must have been terribly disappointed!