The highest administrative costs of the five countries profiled was, I believe, Switzerland, at 16 percent, compared to the US's 25%.

And yet, conservatives still continue to blather on about the inefficiency of one big government institution administrating health care. Well maybe there are some inefficiencies, but it's still a hell of a lot more efficient than thousands of insurance companies administrating health care....

I've heard the candidates (Dem) referencing the number of uninsured many times, but to me, that number of people bankrupted is just as if not more compelling - that should be drilled.

Particularly because while medical collections are not supposed to negatively affect your credit (still on your report, but not supposed to count against you), it often still does. Doubly shitty since a lot of those go into collections while the insurance company is fighting having to pay it.

I kinda feel like a freak. I grew up in Kansas and have always been a city boy. My parents were city folk. My grandparents were city folk. Pretty much no farm heritage at all.

Well, my grandfather had a hobby farm, but he sold insurance for a living.

Oh wait, he majored in agriculture. I guess I am slightly less citified than Gud. Though you wouldn't know it by meeting me! I'm all, "So, do you bring the cows inside in the winter? Or what? Wow, how many colors of horses are there? Like, four? Oh. 37, you say. Huh."

I kinda feel like a freak. I grew up in Kansas and have always been a city boy. My parents were city folk. My grandparents were city folk. Pretty much no farm heritage at all.

I have no farm heritage, either, that I know of. Definitely not in my grandparents' generation.

Yeah, I'm farm clueless too. I have driven a full size tractor though, albeit not on a farm.

I think the USPS eventually got around to using a roadname and number.

sara, this is true of my dad's small town. My aunt was on the township board so when it came time to giving roadnames, she used her family's names!

My exurban college roommate's father totally pulled a Tom Sawyer on me and got me to help get the pool ready for summer, but I caught on before he got me to mow the lawn. "Have you ever driven a riding mower?" "OMG! I never have!! ...wait."

My paternal grandfather would have become a shepherd if he hadn't run away to America at the age of 13, and my maternal great-great grandmother was a goatherd in the Swiss-Italian Alps. That's as close to anything remotely farmlike as any of my family history gets (that I know of--since we were mostly small town or country peasants pre-US, there may have been tiny plots of land and family vegetable gardens involved somewhere along the way).

My mom was raised on a dairy farm, and Dad was also raised on a farm, but it was a small one for mostly family food. Grandpa A's main income came from various jobs he had around town, up to and including being a janitor at Stateville Penitentiary at one point.

maternal great-great grandmother was a goatherd in the Swiss-Italian Alps.

Was she a lonely goatherd?

My grandparents were all dairy farmers. I think all my great-grandparents were too....