Three Bits of March Madness.

First I read about the captain of an airliner travelling from New York to San Francisco who had to be restrained and placed under the aviation equivalent of house arrest after turning a bit strange.

Then I read about a British Government Minister advising everybody to store jerry cans full of petrol in their sheds to ameliorate the effects of the impending strike by tanker drivers. He has been soundly told off by the Fire Brigade, who have been telling us for as long as I can remember: ‘Under no circumstances must you ever store petrol in jerry cans in your shed.’

But the best of all: I read that there’s a proposal being put forward in America to penalise anybody who doesn’t have private medical insurance. I admit that I was lucky enough to be born in Britain after the advent of the NHS, and so I’ve spent all my life to date being entitled to high quality medical care completely free. And I do realise that America is a bit backward when it comes to getting people with more money than they’re ever going to need to spend some of it on something useful for a change – like providing health care for everybody, even the poor who, by definition, don't deserve it. I still have a question, however.

As far as I understand the situation, the people who don’t have medical insurance in America are generally those who are too poor to afford it. So how are you going to penalise them? What are you going to take from people who already have nothing? What am I missing?