What you don't see here is that when he inevitably rams that thing into a wall or spins out of control on a curve, he won't have any healthcare coverage.

Both the photo and the first comment are truly fantastic.

Yes Randolf, nobody has any health-care coverage here in the States. We just let people die left and right because they can't get their hands on penicillin. You must watch a lot of the ole' Beeb, don't you?

Let me bring you and some others up to speed on this topic. Did you know that it is ILLEGAL here for a hospital to refuse to provide care based on insurance coverage, or lack of it?

Here is how it works. If you are rich, you see any doctor you wish.
If you work for a living, your employer will typically provide (read: pay for) coverage for you unless you work at McDonald's or something similar.
Since there are many heath insurance companies that compete with each other for business and with even more comprehensive "Heath Maintenance Organizations", they are actually quite responsive to customer complaints in that it is just too easy to give your business to another company. If you leave, they lose customers and they then lose money.
If you are retired, disabled or just poor, you receive "Medicare" coverage from the Federal government. This is also frequently subsidized by the state that you live in for extras not specifically covered by "Medicare". The State of California is quite generous in that aspect as ALL children under the age of 18 automatically qualify for FREE heath-care by simply filling out a form. No fees required and your coverage starts immediately.

One thing we don't have in The States is rationing of services or longterm waits for care. Then again, we can't have everything.

Yes Randolf, nobody has any health-care coverage here in the States.

Actually, they way I interpeted his comment was not as an ignorant jibe at U.S. healthcare but that the contraption is such an obvious death-trap that no sensible insurance company would touch it with a barge pole and anyone who kills himself driving one of these things has it coming to him.

But there's always more than one way of reading things.

And here I thought it was simply amazing that someone would think of "health-care coverage" when faced with something so innovative and witty.

It's not as though Los Angeles just spent $275 million on such machines for its thin blue line.

On US healthcare, one of the saving graces of the monstrosity that just passed expanding medicare is that everybody gets to buy a Medical Savings Account (MSA). That means that health care coverage for all even if your employer doesn't offer coverage. The premiums are relatively low because you're paying out of pocket (with pre-tax cash) for the first $x thousand and insurance kicks in with something like a $3k deductible. As anybody who's had private health insurance knows, the larger the deductible, the lower the premium and $3k is a huge deductible.

Sorry ankle biters, it looks like you're going to have to pick on something else in future when you complain about the US.

I don't have a link handy, but I've seen photos of precursor designs dating back to the 1930s.
Very cool indeed -- when I was a teenager there was a picture of one in the local paper, which I cut out and kept for quite a few years.

Still Googling; no luck on what I was looking for, but take a look at this!

well, we here in the US were going to get national healthcare, just like they have in Cuba. after a test run, it was discovered that recipients of such a program have an uncontrollable urge to construct rafts of discarded styrofoam icechests and set sail in shark-infested waters out of sight of land with little or no chance of survival.

Yes, Glenn. Cubans tend to leave their country because they can't pay their own healthcare premiums. That's exactly it. You're so sharp.

Is there health care where you live, Randolph? Does your health care provider know you are brain dead? Have you not got the memo?

ya know randolph, you're the kind of marksman the kennedy's are looking for.