Upscale notes:

My manual wheelchair is the same thing. $3000 for what it cost new. Put
three or four of them together and you've got the equivalent in funds for a
small compact car, but there sure is a hell of a lot less engineering in
those chairs than there is in the car.


IMO, there's a heavy gouge factor added to every piece of medical equipment
sold today. I can recall paying for my own knee surgery and getting
clipped--and I use that word advisedly--for $38 for a 6' long Ace bandage.

When my mother was alive, the hospital whacked her 10 bucks for two generic
aspirin and couldn't understand when she told them where to put their billed-in
donation: I really loved that one, because they didn't ask if you wanted to
donate, they billed it and waited for you, or your insurance company, to delete
it. Mom had 2 things going: she was an RN who worked nearly 50 years, including
several as acting hospital adminstrator, and she was raised during the Great
Depression. I'd love to have 5% of her fiscal handiness.

Charlie Self
"Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get
the blame." Laurence J. Peter