>>However, this is the problem that I see with nationalized health care. Once the government is paying for your health care, it feels that it has the right to become more intrusive in all other aspects of your life....
>>New York City outlawed salt shakers from tables in restaurants because salt is bad for you and too many Americans have high blood pressure. Now salt is an "under the counter" item that you have to ask for explicitly in New York City (just like the dirty magazines at the drug store).
If you're concerned about government interference, your example seems to show the opposite of what you intended- unless you're saying that NY has a universal health system? ;-)
Their justification is that reducing salt consumption could prevent 1 in 5 cardiac deaths... so you'll love this: earlier this year the good old Europeans published a paper in JAMA suggesting that consuming more salt may actually *lower* the risk of cardiac death. LOL.
As for your hyponatremia: there's some interesting science there too. Another time maybe. ;-)
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1