: Hate to pop your bubble here MDG, but anyone who shows up at a county hospital emergency room has to be attended to, it's the law. I have absolutely no idea how the idea that everyone has a right to medical insurance became accepted truth in America. It's a dumb concept that often attracts the gullible and overly-emotional.
: About those non-American folks, bet you wouldn't enjoy life in many of those countries. Places like Basutuland. You'll have to poke harder.
*Ahem*
It's mostly true that anyone who shows up in an emergency room must be treated, but this is not always the case. Emergency rooms sometimes turn people away because they lack health insurance, and sometimes they turn them away because they are already overcrowded with people who lack health insurance, and hence use emergency rooms as their doctors of first resort. You know, Frenchy, that E.R.'s are the most expensive places to get health care, and those E.R. bills add to our nation's total health care costs, which means more tax dollars (ours, F) going up in flames.
I may not want to go to Basutuland (wherever the hell that is), but health care in other countries is superior to ours. Also, the right to health care is like any other right - societal consensus. You may call it emotional, but I disagree with you, and not for the first time.