"Don't get sick after June!"

While it has it flaws, no doubt, I and my family have had nothing but good experience over our lifetimes in the British healthcare system. My89yr od grandmother slipped and broke her hip. She had a hip replacement, 2 weeks in a rehabilitation home within 2 blocks of her house, and then a nurse that came by every day for 3 months. 4 months later my father was diagnosed with cancer of the kidney; the NHL had him admitted, removal surgery and home within 2 weeks.
I live here in the US. It is a great relief to know that if something catastrophic should happen, my aging parents will be taken care of without the risk of loosing their home, and without the state coming after my one income family to pay off medical bills.

Rationing health care in the U.S. won't make much difference in health outcomes. The RAND Health Insurance Experiment in the 1970's showed that the experimental group which consumed about a third less healthcare, compared with the control group which got all the healthcare it wanted "for free," didn't make the experimental group any less healthy.

As for having to wait for non-emergency medical procedures, I thought conservatives extolled the virtues of self-discipline, the Stoic endurance of suffering and delayed gratification.

How about starting by forcing cigarette companies and other industries (think fast food, gambling, beverage) to internalize their costs, i.e. to tax them (or their products) according to the financial burden they place on society. One argument against this is that it is my right to decide to do these things. Fine, if you can pay for it. Another is that we don't know the true costs of any of this. That doesn't really fly. We know enough to know that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, etc., that a diet of crappy food with no nutritional value contributes to heart issues, diabetes, etc., that gambling causes addiction, job loss, family break-ups, etc., and could come up with reasonably (high) estimates with respect to the costs of those industries. Taking this approach would force people to make better, healthier, decisions. Healthier people means lower health care costs.

And all of this comes to you from a smoker :-)

The current health care system is unacceptable, and changes to the status quo are necessary. I find coexistence of government and private health insurance viable. It is common for people in UK to subscribe to private health insurance for additional consultation and prompt surgery. The system works fine.

I actually like the healthcare system in Taiwan that FrontLine reported on.

"When government owns the nation’s health-care system, we can all look forward to the same level of care. "

All of us? Really? Do you really think our "leaders" will submit to the same medical "care" as we the proletariat?

"It's not like we'll be doing away with private health care options."

Like most of your CONGRESSMEN, you haven't read the bill and think Obama isn't Lying. YOUR FIRST, MISTAKE!!

Page 16 of the bill, does in fact outlaw private options.

And there is a reason why EVERY country which went down this road 20 years ago is looking for way out, you fools! It was a horrible idea then and it is a horrible idea now.

But like Leftist never ending love affair with communism\socialism\progressivism which has failed miserably everywhere it has been tried, THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT.

Hell, Obama even said it out load this morning. You sick and elderly are just going to have to go to hospice and take one for the team. Hopefully, all you liberals will show by example and refuse test and care. Better to die and keep your hands off of Obama's money.

Having spent significant portions of my adult life under government health care (military) AND commercial insurance - as well as a period of unemployment where Medicaid nearly killed our newborn - I see problems with EVERY system.
Military care ranged from exceptional to exceptionally bad - but so did private care.
And for seven years working for the largest newspaper company in America, I saw my take-home pay go DOWN each year, as insurance costs increased each year much more than the annual pay raises - not to mention steady increases in co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs.

I'm currently a federal employee and, for the first time in almost 40 years of working, I have reasonably priced insurance with great coverage - while still having choice in my care.

I don't know what the health care answer is - but the current system, with 47 million or more without insurance and allegedly the most expensive health care in the world, certainly isn't working.

Time to break the whole mold, not just try to kill whichever aspects you find ideologically disagreeable.

"But two months later stories like this started to appear. I wish I’d had them in front of me to hand to Ms. Clinton. "

I wish I had gotten to be there if you had. The Walter Reed Army Medical Center is administered by the ARMY, not the Department of Veterans Affairs. It's not even the same federal department - you might as well blame the FBI for the failings of the IRS. Not to mention that it says who runs it right in the title!

Maybe your point is that we should privatize Army hospitals? "M*A*S*H Beth Israel" does have sort of a ring to it, I'll give you that.

Give me a break indeed, sir - nothing but myths, lies, and downright stupidity here. This is a partisan smear piece - you are openly walking into it with a clear journalistic bias, not to mention that you can't even bother to check the simplest facts in your story. Pretty sad.

"Would you accept a 10 - 25 % increase in income tax to pay for their brand of health care?"

NO. If I wanted to commit 25% of my earnings to healthcare I would.

The people talking about the wonderfulness of these systems have never seen them first hand. I have traveled widely and see all three. Funny, that until this year, we were all told to look at the great Canadian programs and those of Britain until the propaganda was overtaken by events now LEFTIST have moved on to other less widely know places. Back in the day, we used to be bombarded about superiority of the Cuban and Soviet healthcare. Then Castro had to fly to Spain for a simple surgery and of course the light was shed in that there were TWO systems for the politburo and for the peons.

Now you fools want to bring that here? Are you insane?

HAVE YOU IMBECILES EVER WONDERED WHILE YOUR BELOVED COMMUNIST REPRESENTATIVES EXEMPT THEMSELVES FROM THE GOVERNMENT RUN VA SYSTEM AND MEDICARE?

John, Sorry to steal your thunder, but PBS Frontline has already done your story. It's called "Sick Around the World:"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

And as long as you're going to argue by anecdote, why don't you do a story on the abuses of the for-profit health insurance industry?

http://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare/

Or interview Wendell Potter, former health insurance industry PR guy turned whistleblower?

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html

Glad to see that straw-man arguments and hit piece journalism are alive and well. Keep up the good work, John.

The reason seniors are happy with medicare is that they get something for nothing. They use more health care than they can pay for and the rest of us make up the difference with either taxes or by being overcharged for health care services. This model only works if there is a second group to make up the difference. It doesn't work if EVERYONE uses more than they pay for.

This article seemed bias from the start, but I read it anyway. Not surprising since pharma and health care "provders" make up such a large % of advertising dollars. There will be complaints with any system, but the Medicare patients that I have asked about their health care are very satisfied and the doctor's seem to have the same comments. They like it because they don't have to jump through hoops to get paid, they say with Medicare they know what they will get paid and when they will get paid. The comments about this article are better than the article itself!

John,

You cherry-pick negative anectdotal evidence. Perhaps you could be a little more balanced in your blog. Please see Time Magazine's 2006 article, How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376238-2,00.html

"If it's so bad, then ask your congressman to give his up."

Are you assuming that the "public option" will be the same program currently provided to Congress? I wouldn't make that claim.

Reading this thread, I thought all of you might like a perspective from a Paramedic. I work for a 911 and Transfer Ambulance Company. Quite often, we will do a transfer from an Indian or Veterans Hospital, and they are nightmares. It is impossible to get things done on time. I admit the paperwork is repetitive and cumbersome, and that hospitals might try streamlining. More importantly, the so-called "great government-run health care known as Medicaid and Medicare" do not reimburse at the full amounts. My father, a physician, does not take Medicaid anymore, because they would only reimburse him 60 per cent of the cost--which was forcing him to charge more on other patients. Medicare and Medicaid only pay 60 per cent on ambulance services. Say a $1,000 ambulance ride is only reimbursed at $600? It will drive the cost up. Furthermore, as an Emergency Responder, I cannot fathom health care to self-imposed trauma or disease. If you use dirty needles as a drug user, you're going to get hepatitis or AIDS. Why should my taxes pay for that? If you shoot someone when drunk, why should my taxes pay for that? If someone gets Diabetes II because they are obese, which is a lifestyle choice, why should my taxes pay for that? I once did a call for three rednecks who got drunk and decided to take target practice on their empty beer cans and set them atop a propane grill. Guess what happened. You want my taxes to pay for that? What about COPD patients? The average one still smokes! Around oxygen equipment. Most of them are on Medicare or Medicaid, which are both going broke.
I have a heart for people born with cancer, congenital heart defects, diabetes I, or leukemia. But don't force me to pay for some moron who gets COPD, then gets Medicare and Medicaid to cover the bill while they still smoke.
I admit Health Insurance Companies have driven up costs as well with burdensome paperwork. But it compares nothing to Medicare and Medicaid--both of which undermine personal responsibility.
As for those who think that government will do better, think again. Indian Hospital and VA's are terrible. Moreover, instead of health insurance officials rationing care, under this change, the government would be doing it.
Why are we getting insurance companies or medicare to pay for generic prescription drugs, which are abysmally low. I can understand for the expensive ones, but 100 generics of my statin is only $14! I can pay for that.
Finally, I will concede that universal coverage is probably more principled, but it is hardly practical-especially when our population is even bigger than the UK, France and Germany combined.
Everyone cries "let's do what Europe and Canada have done." Okay, I'll do that under one condition: we do the European and Canadian thing by making a loser-pay court system to cut back on frivilous lawsuits. Any takers on that?

It's ridiculous to bring up Hong Kong or Scandinavia or Switzerland or any other smaller socialist country to make the argument that government run health care works. These are small prosperous countries with homogeneous populations for the most part. Get rid of employer based health care and turn into a consumer paid system and you'd see the system change fast. Why should health care be tied to my job. Think of all the people in the USA that stay at jobs they don't like because of the "benefits." How damaging is this to the economy?

Medicare is loved by the elderly because they have no concept of actual costs. All they know is that they go to the Dr. whenever they want and don't have to pay at the time of service. Unforunately, more and more Dr's and hospitals are opting out of Medicare. Access to care is getting more difficult. The only way to corect this problem is to bring personal responsibility back into the equation. Insurance is is just that, insurance not daily maintenance. High deductable plans with an HSA allow people to make informed decisions.

Don't 4 get to campare to Norway & Finaland too.
I'm a poor disabled white woman who lives on a SSI ck. & currently receive Medicaid from the state. I'm frightened to death over whats gonna happpen to mine & my Mom's(who is totally blinds)Medicare.
I DO NOT want a politician or someone paid by the Obama Admin to decide whether or not I should receive chem. 4 cancer if i should ever need it.
To the ppl who voted for"CHANGE" well you got it now! Shake pockets & you'll hear change bot no money or jobs....
Can somebody tell me,if you were the Pres of the US & your country is in so much trouble, why would u on your 1st day n office,get the terroist outta gitmo? I think thats weird. Oh & no water boarding cause that's cruel even though they cut Americans heads off over there.
WAKE UP AMERICA!

Government sponsered/run health-care? Are you ******* kidding me? I do not know the solution to this problem, but the government run plan should be the last option on the list (if there is one). Government run anything always seems to turn into a disaster. These people have no clue how to run anything effeciently. If government was run as a business, these people wouldn't last the week.

I am English and have lived in the US for 11 years. Both my children were born here. Between me and my company $15k a year is spent on my families health insurance.

In that time I have had coverage cancelled and backdated to before the birth of a child resulting in huge bills. I have prescriptions that are not covered by my plan. My family has treatments that are not covered by my plan. Between the birth of my first child and second, covered well visits were reduced by half while the costs went up.

I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the US. I have the $600 dollar deductible Virgin Atlantic plan. If any of my family developed a moderate to serious condition, I would get on a plane and take them to England for healthcare that in my experience is as good and often better than here and which will never bankrupt me.