Such devices do have settings for permissible FLA (full load amperes), time to trip, and (on most) many others. Very easily, the problem could have been not the device, but how it was set up.

With no space suits, in an unpressurized cabin.....

What you have suggested is a laudable concept in theory. Goodness knows the overhead for medical treatment is unreal. And your remarks as to what health "insurance" really is are undeniable. But what of the American who simply doesn't have the ability to earn a good income, despite the fact that he works hard, and he come up with cancer at 30? Do we as a society tell him that because he, individually, is incapable of earning more money that he gets to die at 30? That, while those of us who pound a keyboard for a living and make good money, get to live? In my mind, all of this boils down not to economics or politics, but to how we view ourselves as a people. Other nations have a cohesion of purpose and place that causes them to feel that every member of their society is deserving of at least proper medical care. And virtually everyone in those societies will state that they are quite willing to sacrifice, to contribute, to that end. I have seen these societies in person, I know this to be the case. I have asked Frenchmen and Germans and Englishman and Danes the same question, and I always got the same answer. Why not us?

>I've seen about one good argument for universal >health care. How about wanting to live in an advanced, cohesive society where there is a unity of purpose and a real regard for the other members of your nation? That, as opposed to "I've got mine, pal. Tell somebody else about your problems.". Think that's a tree hugger pipe dream? Talk to Joe Average in Europe, Japan, Canada, etc. about *why* they're willing to pay taxes to keep their system funded. Every time I've ever asked, I've always gotten the exact same answer (paraphrased, obviously), "we are an advanced, well off society. All of our people deserve decent health care. We regard this as a right, not an option reserved for the well off".

You for sure hit the various nails on the various heads, partner. If anyone is seriously interested in these topics, I can heartily recommend Robert Reich's book "Supercapitalism". Great read. It dissects in detail all of the above mentioned effects, and many more.

RE the "free market", that's exactly why I proceeded the phrase by "so-called". Just like "clean coal" and "jumbo shrimp", it flat doesn't exist. And as far an people going bankrupt because they can't afford to stay alive any other way, I for one see absolutely NOTHING "nice to know" surrounding that sad state of affairs. In 2008, in the wealthiest country on the planet, when people get vetted at an intake station at a hospital as to whether or not they have any health insurance, which literally determines what level of care they get, I call that a meat grinder.

Right. And our current health care system, where 50% of all personal bankruptcies are directly traceable to health care costs, half of the kids in the country have no health insurance, and more retired people all the time face the unenviable choice of buying either food or their meds, works really great. No system designed and implemented by humans is perfect. But have you ever seen the health care systems in the EU up close? Have you ever had occasional to receive health care over there? I have, and those systems make ours look exactly like what it is, a soul-less meat grinder designed to make health "care" corporations a huge amount of profit on the backs of people who pay more for health care than any other industrialized country *on the planet*, but whose *quality* of care is ranked #37 by the WHO. But no matter. The unregulated so-called "free market" will take care of everything, right? Just look at what great shape our economy is in...