Replying to a message of JIM WELLER to BOB ACKLEY:

 JW>> the cost of energy (gasoline, home heating oil, natural
 JW>> gas) went down a lot,

 BA>> Not around here.  Home heating oil went from $1.81/gallon
 BA>> last February to $2.49/gallon this past December

 JW> That's truly odd. Oil and gasoline prices generally trend up
 JW> and down with the price of crude. I saw heating oil peak at
 JW> $1.32/L here when crude oil peaked. It since went down to
 JW> $0.83 and rose again in recent weeks to $0.93. And I track
 JW> it weekly as part of my job.

I filled the tank again yesterday and the price/gallon was up about 7
cents more, to $2.565/gallon.

 BA>> I don't believe government statistics

 JW> Then who do you believe?

 JW> I read a lot of newspapers from around the world and this
 JW> morning's column in the Miami Herald highlighted what the
 JW> rest of the world sees as problems with current US health
 JW> care.

The demand for health care is infinite, and the health care resources
are limited.  For that reason alone, care must be rationed and not
everybody is going to get the care they want or need.  That's just
the way it is.

Historically in the US, care has been rationed by price; in those 
industrialized countries that provide care to their people rationing
is done by bureaucratic fiat (including having to wait for care).  I
suspect the situation has changed in Britain since they got so much
bad press over here about it years ago, but it used to be that if one
was over age 55 and developed problems that required kidney dialysis,
the NHS would not provide it - the patient was simply told that there
was nothing they could do.

Since the government - and to a lesser extent big insurors - got involved
in the US health care system, the ability of providers to provide charity
care to the truly needy has declined, because the providers are no longer
allowed to include the costs of providing that charity care as overhead in
other patients' bills - particularly those sent to Medicare.  *That* is the
dirty little secret the government - and big insurors - don't want to get out.

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