[hutchibk]

All valid points Sandy - but they do not make the case for me that the ONLY answer is socialized, rationed healthcare. It is time to set the private insurance companies on their ear, and turn the system upside down and shake it out, but I DO NOT want another gov't. run social program in our country. As Brenda D. correctly said - our gov't is tremendously horrible at EFFICIENTLY creating and running any type of social program. Their purpose should only be to help the poor, provide transparency, and protect against fraud and abuse—rather than telling your doctor how to practice medicine. I am not defending insurance companies, either. I know that many insurance companies have become evil beaurocracies... that is what we are left with in the wake of HMOs and an attempt to ration/determine care from a level of socially, beaurocratically standardized managed care. Universal/National/Socialized health care would be nothing more than HMO style managed care, which is what ins companies have been trying to emulate now for the last decade. It was never like this before the HMO debacle of the 90s. Caya - I am certain that Canadian healthcare is very popular in Canada and great for Canadians. I am not putting it down. I know it works for you. It is what you have had your whole life and are accustomed to... I do not believe it is the prudent system for the US. Currently, 15% of Americans are not insured privately. That does not mean that they don't have access to healthcare. Many of those qualify for medicare or medicaid, but do not apply. 10 million of them are aged 25-35 and make more than $50,000 a year. That tells me that they can afford it but don't. I am mortified that Brenda D is in the quagmire she is in. I have had the option of HMO style employer provided insurance in the past and have declined it in favor of always keeping my private PPO insurance. Keeping my own private insurance helped protect me from losing my coverage if I ever lost my job... and it gave me the choice of who my plan was with. And I can honestly say, my ins. company has given me virtually no problems since my b/c Dx four years ago.

The utopian dream of national healthcare coverage lauds supposed substantially lower costs of single-payer, government-run systems, like the U.K.’s and Canada’s. Yes; but costs are controlled by rationing health care to the sick. Apparently, onerous waiting lists have caused illegal, for-profit health-service centers to proliferate in some countries, thriving outside of the gov't. monopoly. (Good for them I say!) The rogue establishments are so well-accepted that the head of one became the president of the Canadian Medical Association. (To me, that speaks volumes about the efficiency and equity of the system...) And single-payer systems do not always achieve equality of access or health status — often the powerful, assertive, litigious, and connected go to the head of the line.

And at the same time, private insurance cannot be lauded as a model industry. The massive bureaucracies patients encounter when they attempt to obtain the medical services they paid for are not merely frustrating, they sometimes kill. One enormous problem with U.S. insurance firms arises from their lack of accountability. Agents, such as governments and employers, use our money to buy our health plans for us. The agents’ incentive — simplicity and cost control — is not at all aligned with the needs of the us, the ultimate user.

Senators Richard Burr (R., N.C.), Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), and others on both sides of the politcal spectrum, want to refigure the tax code so that we could buy health insurance with tax-sheltered money, a right currently reserved solely for our employers. If we purchased our own health insurance with tax-protected funds, we could keep these arrogant behemoth insurance companies in check, just as we do in the other sectors of the American economy. The Swiss universal-coverage, consumer-driven system requires the person, and does not allow the employer or government, to buy health insurance. (The poor primarily receive funds from a gov't. program to purchase insurance just like everybody else.) This consumer control enables the Swiss to enjoy an excellent quality of care (at costs that are a third lower than ours), due to consumer choice, market forces, and open, competitve free enterprise, without the social inequality of single-payer countries.

I am a proponent of the Swiss system of healthcare.