This exchange of experiences and opinions was quite an education for this Greek doctor. Thank you people for taking the time to write down what you know. Reading you I have learned a lot about the US health care system. While working here in Greece I had always the annoying sensation that our health care system was devised primarily to help the doctors and other civil servants make a living and that the occasional cured patient was just a by-product of that original goal. We have air conditioning in 90% of the hospitals though.