With private health insurance, people have to deal with corporate bureaucrats trying to dish out as little money as possible. My dad had a heart attack scare in 2004. He had multiple bypass surgery and when it came time to pay the bill, the insurance company (my mom's insurance from her work because my dad is self-employed and is amongst the many self-employed that go without their own insurance because it is too costly to pay on their own) refused to pay $25000 because they felt that part of the care was not needed. Whose opinion do you trust whether certain care is needed, your doctor who is trained in that area of medicine or some corporate bureaucrat that has not training in basic biology much less medicine. the insurance company eventually caved, but people deal with that crap all the time with corporate insurance and HMOs.

My father was lucky, anyhow, many self-employed go without if they do not have a spouse with insurance or are not married.

I have had chronic neck pain for 3.5 years. For some of that time I have been the unlucky recipient of university health insurance, which is worse than the usual corporate paid for insurance. 3 weeks ago I joined the italian health system (I have been living in italy for 1.5 years) for 150 euros. The same day I got in to see my doctor and had an MRI in two weeks. Having gotten the results today, I now need to see a specialist. Not sure how long that will take, but I had no trouble getting in to see my doctor and getting an MRI. Also, No deductible involved (the MRI cost 36 euro).

At least I have health insurance now; when not a university student I had nothing (ibuprophen and PBR, to paraphrase Jon Stewert) and as a university student it cost more then the 150 euro I paid.

Marc Maron had a good take on this issue. Shut up and lets do this already!

Right on!

HA Ha, %70 of Americans want socialized health care? Open mouth and insert foot. Where do you get your facts? CNN? HAHA!