This picture, taken in another occasion, nevertheless says it all about the last minute change of plans cancelling tonight's dinner at the Perdonanza ceremony in L'Aquila that would have brought together Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. In a tersely worded declaration, the Vatican press office announced earlier today that it had been decided to cancel the dinner and give the money put aside for it to charity. At the same time Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the Italian government, announced that in order to avoid any political strumentalization (toolate!!!) the government would no longer be represented at the ceremony by Berlusconi but by Undersecretary Gianni Letta.

The change in plans made it clear that the Vatican did not want to be drawn into any further verbal tussles with the Berlusconi camp and followed a new dispute between Il Giornale, the daily newspaper owned by Berlusconi's brother, Paolo, and the Italian Bishops Conference, the CEI.. Yesterday, the paper's controversial editor, Vittorio Feltri, who has a well-deserved (and I can testify to this since I once worked for him) reputation as a muckraker, accused Dino Boffo, the editor of the CEI's daily, Avvenire, of throwing stones at glass houses saying in effect that he was morally unfit to criticize Berlusconi's lifestyle as that paper has done repeatedly in recent months. Feltri said Avvenire's editor was a known homosexual who had once been investigated for telephone harassment. Berlusconi took his distance from Feltri, saying people's private lives were sacred. Boffo denies the incident.

In the meantime, Berlusconi's lawyers announced yesterday they were suing the Rome daily, La Repubblica, for one billion euros in damages for what they claim is defamation. Their target is the series of "ten questions" that the paper says Berlusocni refuses to answer. La Repubblica has been waging an unceasing battle against the prime minister for the last several months, but personally I think people are getting tired of it. But more about this in another, future, post.

Do you still drink milk, just as you did when you were a little kid? Not all that many adults do, although Michael, my friend and co-author (of the National Geographic Rome Traveller guidebook) always has a glass of milk before going to bed at night and apparently can't sleep if he doesn't have it. So IF you are a milk-drinker and want to assuage your thirst for nature's calcium-crammed drink, go right in to your local Italian café' and ask for a "latte, per favore" and that, my dears, is just                           what you will get. Milk!

National health care is NOT a Communist idea. It may have its roots in some forms of socialism but, so what? The fact is that ALL, and I mean ALL, European countries - Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany etc. etc. ALL of which are DEMOCRACIES where there are free elections, a free press, and an economic system that is predominantly capitalist (this is NOT the former Soviet bloc, which by the way no longer exists) have some sort of national health system, the purpose of which is to make sure that everyone has decent health care. The same is true of Canada and many Latin American countries. (Read Roger Cohen in the New York Times on the differences between the US and the French system.)

The bad side to national health, especially in countries such as Sweden and the U.K., is that to support a functioning national health system, income taxes often have to be rather high. In Sweden, where I am right now as I write, the average income tax is 60%. But if you get sick or have an accident, which was the case last spring for my friend and host Cristina, who broke her ankle getting out of a still moving car, off you go to the hospital and get x-rays, an air cast, crutches and painkillers plus several follow-up visits, all of which at cost practically nothing. Cristina´s total cost for two sets of x-rays, doctor visits and the equipment she was provided with, was 900 Swedish crowns, the equivalent of $ 125.00. That by the way is the annual ceiling for hospital charges so that if she needs hospital care again within a 12-month period she will not pay anything.

Just as a note of interest, in Sweden the out of pocket chargeSwedes must pay are, for a hospital bed per night, 80 crowns ($11.17), for a visit to the family doctor visit, 140 crowns ($19.56) and for a visit to a specialist 260 crowns ($36.32).

It might also be of interest that the state health and welfare system also provide Cristina´s 99-year old mother (yes, 99, and no one is trying to bump her off!) with two weekly visits from a social assistant who helps her bathe and a third visit from someone who goes food shopping for her. She also has an medical alarm bracelet Cristina´s mom has significant savings and therefore pays more for these services than other Swedes, something like $190 a month. If she had no savings she would get the same things free. And if she were sicker - she lives alone and is relatively self-sufficient - or bed-ridden, she´d get almost constant attentio, for next to nothing. During a period of illness when she couldn´t go outdoors (today she is back to taking her daily walks), the welfare office sent over a carpenter to install a ramp so she could go out on her balcony with her walker.

In Sweden, some people now have private insurance policies which cover them when they are abroad or if they do not want to wait for a diagnostic test or opertions such as hip replacements or cataracts since sometimes (but only in the event of non-life-threatening illnesses) there are often delays. But most people rely on the national health system.

In Italy, there is a similar system, the SSN. You have a family doctor whom you can choose and for whom you pay nothing unless he makes a house visit and you are under 65. Medicines are divided into two categories, A and C, the first of which you get free except for a slight out of pocket charge imposed by your regional government, and C, for which you have to pay unless your income is below a certain level, you are over 65 or in a special group of the chronically ill. This includes all sort of pharmaceuticuals. For example, I take HRT and pay only 2 euros $2.80, for each month´s supply.

In Italy, if you are rushed to the hospital, you pay a small out of pocket charge (for some unknown reason. In Italy the charge is called a "ticket") for tests or the use of the hospital bed. Italian hospitals are not great; non-paying patients must have a friend or family-member available to help feed you, take you to the john etc. but if you are indigent or totally alone a solution will be found.

On the negative side, there are very long delays for some non life-threatening procedures or diagnostic tests which leads me to say that in some ways the Italian health system is more virtual than real. People who can afford it, or who like me have private insurance policies (mine is a policy that all Italian journalists must have, a percentage of one´s salary being taken out of one´s paycheck to pay for it), often prefer to pay for immediate diagnostic tests or procedures rather than wait. But the fact that the system exists has the effect of keeping medical prices much much lower than in the U.S. There are many things in the U.S. that cost significantly less than in Italy, including food and many restaurants. But health care is not among them and this can only be attributed to our lack of a national health system.

Here are some examples:

The price of an MRI if you decide not to wait for the health system to find room for you is rarely more than $500.

A pelvic sonagram runs around $140.

I recently paid $146 for about 30 minutes of lasering on my face, chest and hands. When I was last in New York, the doctors office I called asked for $325 for a consultation which did not include any of the actual lasering and no prices were available by phone.

Most private psynciatrists charge between $140 and $200.

What are the downsides of national health? Obviously, there are differences among countries and they way they operate (inefficiency is probably much more of a problem in Italy than in Sweden) but to the extent one can generalize I would say: waste, duplication, long waiting times and burocratic confusion among national, regional and muncipal agencies. But how can these defects justify the rage that some Americans have been expressing and the blatant lies that have been circulating. Is it just ignorance or fear of losing what one has? Which is what, huge doctors and medical bills in times or emergency and, for many, next to no coverage at all???? Furthermore, the fact that scores of Americans don´t seem to realize that Medicare is a government program is a sign that something, as Hamlet said,  is severely wrong in the Kingdom of..  somewhere. And this time it is certainly not Denmark!

The association of Italian municipalities, ANCI, has commissioned a survey regarding the way Italians drive and the results show that drivers here are pretty much as we know them to be: undisciplined and inclined to break the law. The most amusing thing about the survey, is that the majority of the drivers polled gave themselves vey high marks for driving, an average of 7.9 which in the Italian grading system is the equivalent of a B or B+. The survey showed that among the capitals of Euope, Rome had the highest mortality rate for road accidents. Not a good record but on the other hand, other Italian cities were  even worse. The highest fatality rate was registered in the Sicilian city of Catania; the lowest, in Genoa.