Saratogaman and djplong, I am interested to know if you took the time to read the referenced document. I did and found it both informative and disturbing. It is informative because it shows that 1 & 5 year survival rates for various illnesses are higher in countries having either private or public/private systems than those such as the UK, which has a single payer system. The US scored significantly better than the European countries as a whole in survival rates on those studies that included the US.

Like several others on this board, I have spent a significant amount of time in the UK and had occasion to have one of my daughters hospitalized for a seizure while we were visiting friends in St. Andrews.

This was her first, but unfortunately not her last, seizure. It was a severe grand mal seizure. When she got to the ER, I was amazed in both good and bad ways. In the good, there was no rush for paperwork, insurance cards, etc. This was gratifying to see. The downside was the lack of even basic medical services. Despite this being a fairly large hospital there was no CT scan equipment. What shocked me even more was that when a teenager had a seizure for the first time in her life, the ER did not even think to test for drugs! To the best of my knowledge, my daughter has never used and I am confident that she had not when the seizure occurred. They, however, did not know my daughter. Any ER in the US since the 60's would automatically check for drugs. The UK has a drug problem comparable to ours, but the ER did not check for the most common cause of seizures in teenagers today.

From personal experience, I can assure you that the government (VA) computer system does not work at all well. This has been an extremely expensive system and they are still working the bugs out. Medicare is rife with fraud and abuse since there is no financial incentive for the elimination of it. Please excuse me if I do not believe that the government is capable of putting in place a system that is effective, efficient, reliable and not prone to abuse. Again, I believe we should carefully examine the Swiss and German models of private insurance with public support for those who cannot afford coverage. It's time to work towards this idea rather than a total change of the healthcare delivery system in one step.

It is interesting to note that Martha Coakley, the Democrat candidate for the Senate seat left open by the death of Ted Kennedy has received large contributions for the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance providers. Her opponent, Scot Brown (R), has not benefitted from such largess. One might question why the companies that the supporters of Obamacare want to see this 'reform' enacted since the Democrats continually claim that they wish to fight the evil insurance companies?