Some idiot ran a red light and broadsided me when I was 24 years old.  I had three fractured vertabras and assorted damages.  Because of health problems, headaches caused at least partly by that same accident and the damage done to my neck, none of them expensive in the way of cancer, I was never able to work for a major company and always had to be self employed.  I haven't been insured for most of my life and yet my claims ratio for a lifetime has been under 20%.  I have been denied for 38 years because of the back injuries which some day might require surgery or something.  Our system STINKS.  For decades I was perfectly willing to buy health coverage but only if it covered all of me, not paying 100% extra and leaving out anything spinal ever.  I wrote software for the insurance industry and consulted yet I couldn't buy the product.  They would have made money on me but I couldn't buy the product.  There is such an inherent lack of fairness in our system that I have had to face financial ruin for the past 38 years in case anything did happen.  Any plan thjat doesn't cover everybody is maintaining the same basic lack of fairness we have had for decades..

kginca, our system is superior to everyone elses in the world.  We have more technology, more care for chornic disease than any other country in the world, why do you think everyone with money comes here for their care?  UK, Cuba, canada are great if you are not sick, or have some short time illness like a cold, UTI, ear infection etc...  Get cancer, you are screwed there, worse than here.  No acess to the new drugs etc.. wich vastly improve outcomes.  

You go on to cite infant mortality rates, child mortality rates are almost equal, but infant mortality rates are worse for the US than many more nations.  You know why.  They define it differently.  In the US, any birth where the infant takes a breath is considered a live birth.  In other countries, they have sitpulations that the infant has to live for 48 hrs, has to have a certian weight, has to be born after 26 weeks,  all of which take out of the equation the deaths that drag that number down in the US.  If every other country counted births the way we do, we would not be #29, and would be in the top 5.  

You all think that the government will come in and make everything better.  STOP DRINKING THE KOOL AID.  You are fools.  The government allready controlls heath care, and it is the government why heatlh care is so screwed up in this country.  Everyone wants everything paid for, chiropracy, IVF, eye surgery, etc.. so the government goes and mandates to insurance that in additon to all the primary care that they have to pay, and all the diabetes, hypertension, cancer they have to cover all this stuff too.  You think it is all free.  When you pay your insurance you are essentially paying for all YOUR preventitive care and your risk of getting something bad, in additon to the costs of all this other stuff, like IVF if you were a man that you will never use.  That is why insurance is so expensive.  You saviors in government also decide to cut costs so much, that it prevents hospitals from breaking even.  The only solution will be rationing care, and instead of 85% of poeple being able to get insurace from the priavte sectory, it will drop to 25%, and everyone else will get great old government care (think county hospitals, VA etc..)

GreyMatter (and others who still believe our system is superior to Canada's and Western European programs), We have "good" insurance coverage that we pay through the teeth for thanks to COBRA, however we still have to wait between 6 and 10 months to see specialists! Our system is BROKEN folks! We pay much more for care, yet our infant and child mortality rates are among the worst of developed nations. It may be true that the wait is long in Canada, but it's long here too and getting longer. Without real reform it isn't going to get better, it will only continue to get more expensive, and more broken.