[hutchibk]

Hi Lolly - I don't see it as I am "fortunate enough" to have health insurance. Health insurance has been a priority my whole life and I have always had it. Individual insurance. Not employer provided. It is a matter of priorities, I believe. I have never made more than $30,000 a year. That does not make me one of the "fortunate" few. It puts me right there in the lower mid-income range of the US population. I had no problem affording it. I made a choice that health ins was a necessity, whereas, for example, luxuries such as an expensive car or the most expensive cable TV package or expensive clothes, etc etc that were beyond my means, were not a necessity. It was how I was raised... in a personal responsibility, priorities in order, financially conservative family.

As I have said before, I know many people who make a lot more money than me and can certainly afford health insurance, however they don't have it because they are waiting for it to be free and/or are complaining because their job doesn't currently offer it. Instead, they spend a bulk of their money on having a cooler car than their friends, or on risky and unhealthy lifestyle choices. In the meantime they don't go to the doctor or take care of their health. It burns me up.

I don't necessarily agree that our system is broken as much as it is just upside down. I am newly on medicare as well. I didn't want it, but was basically forced into it as a by-product of being on disability. I don't have a bias or negative opinion about a "safety net" (medicare, medicaid) being provided for the truly needy in our society. I don't feel as though I am truly needy. I can still work part-time and did not want to be a burden on the system yet... however, if I did not take the option of medicare now, I would not get another chance in the future, when perhaps I was truly unable to work. I just know that there is a solution out there that makes sense, and is not a huge beaurocratic, inefficient government monopoly program.

I know there are sad stories out there. I am not heartless by any means. But, I won't pay a proven liar to tell me about it. IMO, MM is not a documentarian. Ken Burns is a documentarian. MM is a screen-writer and he makes movies. His fabrications/exaggerations/posed situations in his movies over the years are pretty well-documented. I don't know about this movie, because I haven't seen it and don't need to. IMO, if he was a real, genuine documentarian, he would go to countries with national health care and also tell the stories of their people in their 'rationed' type of systems who have been left out of care that they needed or denied new and/or expensive treatments that their systems won't approve... there are sad stories all around the world, regardless if you have perceived "free" health care or "private consumer insurance" health care.
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I am very interested in one particular expert who has researched for many years how to transform our healthcare system... Regina Herzlinger, who is known as the 'Godmother' of consumer-driven healthcare. Google it. Consumer-driven health care empowers individuals and brings their force to bear on the offerings of doctors, hospitals, and insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It converts the entire system to one that is responsive to the ultimate consumers of its goods and services.

Imagine the concept of consumer-driven health insurers that give you the health care you need at a price you are willing to pay; lower-cost hospitals that do not treat you like a slab of meat; and a government that does only what it is supposed to do—help the poor, provide transparency, and protect against fraud and abuse—rather than telling your doctor how to practice medicine. There is a way to create dynamic markets for health services that are more effective, more efficient, and more responsive to the patient-consumer—and the doctor—than anything we have today.
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Healthcare solutions are not globally applicable. Looking to other countries for magical fixes to U.S. healthcare woes is like expecting that all cancers will respond to the same chemotherapy regimen.