[geeks] healthcare was: nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 08:28:04AM -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> Read up on "medical tourism" and reflect that all the countries people 
> travel to for major surgery are ones in which the free market, not 
> socialized medicine, is operating.

Here, you can't. Although the law says that anyone who physicaly is in
the country is covered, in practice it is not followed. If you come
here on a student or tourist visa, (an employee is considered a 
"working tourist"), you waive the right to free healthcare.

The law has been recently changed and if you leave the country without 
continuing health tax payments after 2 years you don't get it back without
a back payment and a 6 month waiting period. 

One of the benefits here is unlimited free fertility treatments. People
with one Jewish grandparent have been known to take advantage of the
law of return, move here with full citizenship, change their names
to Hebrew ones and have a kids running up hundreds of thousands
of dollars in fertility treatments for each one, and then moving
back to whence they came, resuming their original names, religon,
etc.

Geoff. 

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM