England has provided government run health care since 1948. For the most part, it seems that people like it over there. Only 8% of the population has private health insurance.
If Stephen Hawking were an American he'd be a dead nobody. He wouldn't have earned a Ph.D. in physics. He wouldn't have been able to achieve it, even if he would have been allowed. Whatever insurance he had when he diagnosed with ALS would have dumped him, sooner rather than later. Disability health care would have fought him in court. He would get medicaid and social security disability. It's doubtful his disease would have gone into remission with the disparity in and availability of treatment here, as opposed to there.
What a loss to the world that would have been. How many others have we lost? Does any one out there really want another human being to suffer and die needlessly?
I know, and we do have to pay for it somehow. Here's the perfect solution. Legalize pot. Strictly limit who can grow it - land and loans to the chronically unemployed will be paid back ten fold in taxes. Then there's all the job growth. Entire industries will spring up. Stores to sell, chefs to cook it up, waiters to serve it. The taxi industry will be thriving. Restaurants can have smoking rooms, thereby greatly increasing their food sales. We'd be out of debt in no time.
