You see I come from a country that has universal health care and I wouldn't trade it for your existing system if you paid me. I don't deny though that implementing it now in the US is going to be costly.

I would like to tell you a story though and while I don't have the 'permission' to tell this, I think it's important. I will obscure enough of the details to keep it general... these are friends of mine. A woman, 40's, goes in for a significant but still routine arthroscopic surgery which should have her home the next day. During the procedure the doctor slips and punctures something very important causing her blood pressure to immediately crash and she "dies". After emergency surgery (literally cracking open her chest), tons of transfusions, and 5 days in an induced coma she survives. 4 more surgeries are required to repair the damage and she spends almost 2 months in the hospital. That was mid last year, she is still recovering. Accident's happen.

Here's the rub. The woman's husband is a family doctor, self employed with his own practice for years. He has been informed by his HMO that due to the size of the claims from this event they will not be renewing their insurance at the end of this cycle as they are now considered too high a risk. My understanding is that being self employed they have a loophole to optionally not renew. He has shopped around and no other HMO will now pick up their family as long as he is self employed. This spring he is closing his doctors office to go work for another clinic so they can get health coverage through an employer. They will of course be filing a legal case about this but that only further exacerbates the issue by driving up coverage for doctors and your rates even further.

So due to a slip by one doctor another is forced to close is practice and leave his patients without their family doctor. Their medical insurance will be sky high for the rest of their lives... a lawsuit will be paid off causing a rate increase across the boards... another doctor will see the cost of his coverage go up... and the only ones not getting screwed in this whole thing is the insurance company.

I had a GF in NY in the early 90's and she had a noticeable step in her collar bone because it healed off-set after she broke it. It healed incorrectly because she couldn't afford to go to a hospital to have it set as every penny she had was tied up putting her through NYU.

I had a hernia repaired 4 years back at the Shouldice Clinic in Toronto. The Shouldice charges about $1000 for a hernia repair using their own technique and will have you home in 4 days and back to work in a week. They are world renowned for being a leader in hernia repair. What shocked me though was the fact that I was surrounded by Americans who had chosen to fly up and have their hernia repaired here because the combined expense was still between a third to a half of what they were going to get dinged back home.

And more stories like this: [www.examiner.com]

I don't deny that the US can offer good health care but no one can convince me even with my limited experience that the system is not fundamentally flawed at a core level.

I think the benefit to the productivity of the population in general by providing fundamental health care far outweighs the costs involved. It's a loose measurement but Canada is 11th on the list of world life expectancies. The US is 38th. We share a border... same continent, same basic climate, same social influences... something is very wrong with that picture. Every single country in the top 19 (except one) has universal health care. And that one exception (Switzerland) has Federal regulation of health insurance and it is mandatory for every citizen.

I'm not saying how it's being implemented is correct... I haven't studied the bill in detail. What I do want to say though is that I hear SO many people screaming "Socialism!!!" when they obviously haven't got a clue. Could it be done better or the transition smoother? Possibly... I can't say. But is the final goal worth pushing towards... I'd say yes.

And while you're at it go Metric! Dammit