*PS - Thoughts on SiCKO, healthcare and Michael Moore

Since this is now the second time that someone has weighed in to laud the merits of healthcare for all, it seems pertinent to ask - are you saying that everybody should have access to free healthcare of their choice - be it alternative or mainstream?; or are you saying that everybody should have free access to healthcare as defined only by orthodoxy? Both of you Chris, and DQ, are sharp enough to see where I'm driving at, but it seems worth getting this onto the table of discussion.

Part of my understanding on this is that Europeans in general, to include, broadly, those living in England although they are not formally part of Europe, yet, have sort of been the global standard setters on this for many years now. I also have been told that Europeans at large generally experience, by state mandate, significantly more * of the fruits of their labor extracted from them - off the top, in the form of "income taxation". As an example, about 10 years back I had the fortune to spend several months working with a fellow, a native Netherlander, who came from the Netherlands office of our U.S. employer to get several months of training. It was during the intervening friendship that developed that he generally explained his understanding of how Europe established the capacity to fund this thing being called free healthcare; by way of the aforementioned taxation method. If people want to voluntarily give up some of the frutis of their labor - off the bottom, to fund such, this is one thing. To mandate that they do this - off the top, as a condition of their laboring for hire (employment) is another thing all together. In the latter, people are free to call it whatever they want, to include "free", but it is not free, and it is quite misleading to characterize it as such.

* PS - it sticks in my mind that my friend told me that, at that time, Europeans were accepting the payment, off the top, of upwards to 60 - 70% "taxation" upon the fruits of their labor. I may not be remembering this accurately. If this is the case, I apologize for doing so since this obviously portrays the situation more exagerated than it may be in the present.