Healthcare

I haven't had a good rant in ages, but there are several items that are clogging up my brain with arguments. I'm tired of lying in bed at night writing "letters to the editor" that will never get written, or sent if they were written.
Yesterday I was listening to the radio and a Dr. with Wellsprings (I think that is the insurance corp that he named). He was ranting about having mandatory health coverage for all if the "government" was going to do it. He then went on to cite how many more procedures like CAT scans and MRI's that Medicare pays for than does private insurance. The more he ranted, the more steamed I became.
Medicare insures OLD people and younger people who are DISABLED. It is not FREE, there is a monthly premium and deductibles for just about everything ! Of course there are more of the "exotic" procedures, the sicker population calls for them. If Wellsprings and other private insurers HAD to cover anyone who applied, old, sick, cancerous, HIV, etc the playing field would be more even and the costs would be distributed in a broader fashion across the entire insurance field. Now, only Medicare is an option for most people who are on it. We are lucky, we have a secondary private insurance, although we pay a hefty monthly premium for the privilege. With this extra coverage medical care is not prohibitive for us, although prescriptions probably run a couple hundred a month, after insurance. So far we haven't been hit with the "donut hole", which is about the dumbest thing around.
My own personal choice would be for a government funded and run single payer plan. The government could contract to private companies, giving consumers a choice of plans, with basic plans being "free" and add-ons upping the cost (like in England). If the money that those who are insured now were paid into a government plan, along with the business contributions now being made, all Americans could be insured for no more, and most likely less, than it costs us now.
Our son is Canada loves their "free" medical coverage. I emphasise the free because their taxes are high (don't know for sure compared to ours as a % of gross income). Jeff says that for routine stuff there is a wait of about two months. Hello, my primary care physician has a wait of at least two months! When Jeff had a torn retina he was into a doctor within the hour and referred and on his way to a specialist within an hour of that. When my granddaughter needed stiches for a snowboarding accident, she had less wait in the ER than I had when I went in for chest pain! Fever, difficulty breathing, pain, rashes, etc. are seen rapidly, perhaps even quicker than we can get into our own doctors office here. Twice I have been referred to an "emergency medicine" clinic because my doctor was too busy to work in an extra patient - even one who didn't feel well.

I don't believe that having a government-run medical system will put us at the mercy of Big Brother Government or cause us to have any less privacy than we have at present. The goal is for every citizen to have medical coverage from birth to death, coverage not dependent on ones employer or current state of health. I hope that somehow we achieve this, however it comes to pass. Peace.