> > You're 100% banging on all 8 cylinders. . .

 >    Of course, I'm always right, (he wrote modestly).  :)

I thought I was wrong, ONCE. . . but I was mistaken.

 >   People down here do the same, they clog up ER's with all sorts of minor
 > problems.

What kind of insurance give thenm that sort of freedom to do so?

I tghougght you usually have a copay or service fee?  They spoke of a $10 user
fee here for ER use.  I'm okay with it, if they'll drop the fee if your
complaint was worthy of an ER visit, & invoice later, especially for those not
well-flush with money.

 >    I have a few recurring minor health problems, I've handled them in the
 > past, know what to do and take care of it myself.

Same; & wat I don't know, my wife generally does. If I go to ER, you cvan bet I
NEED it!

 >    And I have taken only one sick day in something like 40 years.

Sounds like my dad -- after 30+ years, at retirement, he had 8 months of full
pay from sick days accrued. Nice way to ease into the lower paycheques. . .

He also had all  his vacation pay, save 4 weeks, & spent he last ten years at
work working 2 days(doubles) then 4 days off, then take 2 vacay days, then 4
days off, & repeated until it was just routine.

 > > Most of my last ERs were for kidney stones (the worst pain humans ever
 > > suffer, I've been told, & believe it

 >   I've heard the same thing and thankfully have never experienced them.

I hope you never do.

 >   I can't recall the last time doctors down here made house calls.

I can: yesterday.

My conmpany has housecall doctors in every major city working for us.  Most are
24/7.  We don't pay more than $250 usually (we charge a higher fee, of course,
to keep ourselves in business & getting our case manager paycheques)

 >   My father was a GP (general practitioner/family doctor) from 1922-62.  I
 > can't count the number of times he would get a phone call in the middle of
 > the night to go somewhere.

There still are doctors(GPs & various specialists) who do this, in the USA, &
globally.  I have personally made contracts with hundreds.

 >   He delivered a lot of babies, to usually poor farm families.  People were
 > proud then and didn't want charity.  Most of them were struggling and paid
 > in kind when possible.  He was paid in produce, farm products (hams, sides
 > of beef, etc) sometimes in chicke

I've heard it was like this at one time -- & why not, right? I'd take payment
like that, any time!

 >    When I was about five or six to around 11 I often went him when he was
 > delivering a baby.  I had one of two jobs.
 >    One was if other kids around to get them out of the house and from
 > underfoot and show me their farm, tell what they did, etc.

Fun & educatoinal!

 >    If only the couple in the house the father helped delivering the baby
 > and my father would bring a new born to me and tell me to watch it, and if
 > it turned blue to call him when he went back to do whatever he and the
 > father
 > were doing.
 >   I never saw a blue baby.

Thankfully -- imagine the trauma if you were witness to a baby not making it,
eh? :( 

Closest I came was babysitting a baby, who died that night, after going home,
from SIDS (crib death)

 > > It's like any gambling: the only way to truly come out ahead is to own the
 > > house!

 >   Number one rule of gambling: The house always wins.

Exaxcrtly why you want to be the house or at least own a profitable share of
it. . .

Works for casinos as well as insurance & stock trading. (all the same thing,
really, when you get down to it)

Your friend,

<+]:{)}
Cyberpope, Bishop of ROM
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