health care and paperwork....

While living in Slovakia, I was seriously ill and required hospitalization.

At the time, as far as I recall, I did not fill out very many forms. I did, however, have a small plastic card which indicated that I was part of the state system of health care.

Recently, I have been living in the USA with my eighty-something parents. They frequently visit doctors, and, on every visit without exception, are asked to fill out forms, and are provided legalistic documents for their signature.

That demand upon their time stands in sharp contrast to the paperwork free spending which
went on in Iraq at the beginning of the occupation. (I do not mean to suggest that anything has changed today; but the link below is to an article written five years ago.)

I am attaching a link to provide the details:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n13/ed-harriman/where-has-all-the-money-gone