I am *so* fed up with hearing people say variations of "The US has the *best* health care in the world!" Yesterday, online, I read that at least twice.

Sure, *for those who can afford it*, our health care can be excellent, and our doctors are arguably the best-trained anywhere and our drug r+d and medical technology are cutting-edge....

....but if we don't care enough about our fellow citizens to ensure that *everyone* here has at least *basic* health care coverage, then, to my mind, it doesn't really matter. A particularly galling example was a blog entry that mentioned offhand that US doctors provide the best health care (wasn't even what the post was about). And that phrase was a link, so I followed it. It was an article in the Daily Telegraph (a UK newspaper) talking about cancer survival rates in western European countries (because Britain's falling behind, apparently). The only mention of US healthcare in the article said that we are more likely to use newer drugs to fight cancer. Um..yeah, but only on those who can afford it.

THAT is the best they could come up with in support of "the US has the best health care"? Never mind that it doesn't mention US cancer survival rates (which I'm willing to bet aren't all that spectacular, overall, given the number of uninsured we have here), or that cancer survival rates are hardly the end-all, be-all yard stick of overall health care, even if our numbers were good...

OK, rant over. Just had to get that out of my system.

Today's our anniversary, and the gift I'd ordered came in time; I got everything all ready last night to give him this morning before he went off to class....and when I got up, I was so out of it I completely *forgot* until he said "happy anniversary" as he was almost ready to go. D'oh! Ah, well. He did like his gift (A couple of DVDs of adaptations of Terry Pratchett Discworld books). In the spirit of giving, I also took a big step (for me) that I've been putting off for a couple years, now. I called a therapist to set up an appointment. I need it, I know that, and have known it for a while; I just...hadn't done anything about it until today, despite DH's gentle urging. There's...um...a lot of stuff that's been simmering for a long time. The big part I can talk about here is my mom's memory problems. That's kinda *always* in the back of my head, and I need some better tools for coping, I think.

Anyway, it's a little scary, but in a good way, to know I've finally got the ball rolling on that.

And now DH is home, and I have to get ready for my ortho appointment about my shoulder, which is acting up again, so it's time to wrap up.