Interesting...

"It is easy to fall into ideological debate on this issue, with one side upholding public knowledge for the sake of social justice and the other insisting on the value of private initiative and the need to financially reward it. However, there is a better way to view this cluster of issues, namely, in terms of efficiency. The United States is unique among industrialized countries in not having a national health system. Health care is overwhelmingly private and largely in the hands of insurance companies. The cost is approaching 15% of the U.S. gross domestic product, and more than one-quarter of the population is not covered. By contrast, Canada (like most other industrialized countries) has universal coverage at a cost of under 9% of gross domestic product. Aside from the cost, it is hard to compare the relative quality of the health-care systems, but one statistic is revealing: Cancer patients in Canada live an average of 14 months longer from the time of detection than those in the United States."

-- James Robert Brown, "Privatizing the University--the New Tragedy of the Commons," Science 290 (5497): 1701

And our seniors are going to Canada to buy drugs. I do not object to free trade in principle, but I always have agreed with Roger Taney's sentiment in the Charles River Bridge Case that free trade only extended so far as the public interest would allow.

ESA(20030514.1)