Government Health Care?

The other day I was in Lake Havasu on vacation and ran across a couple in their 60s on vacation from Canada. I couldn’t resist asking them about their opinion since our congress wants to model our system after what they have in Canada. The husband was a business owner and the wife was a nurse, so I got quite different opinions.She says that she likes her health care system because everybody is covered. The only problem is that since they went to this system, the doctor to patient ratio is not as good. (and that makes sense since the same number of doctors and nurses have to service 25% more patients)He said that he does not like it because as he gets older, he needs periodic MRIs due to health problems and he can’t get them in Canada. The reason he can’t get them is because there is no immediate danger. So in order to assure that his health problem is not getting worse, he comes down to United States every year to get tested. He says that it is illegal for him to pay for health care in Canada. So he has to go out of the country. They both agree that if a person is very sick or in immediate danger, they can usually get attention within a week. There are those cases that slip by the system. And those are the ones you see on TV. But in general, the sick get taken care of. They also both agreed that it is very expensive. They claim that 48% of their wages go to the government since they went to this system. Another thing they mentioned is that when you are sick and in the hospital, 100% of everything is taken care of. That goes for everybody. But once you are discharged, you have to buy your own prescriptions. Therefore everyone carries insurance for prescriptions that they pay for out of their pockets. Personally I want the freedom to be able to choose exactly how much medical care I want. If I want to be checked every week and am willing to work extra to do so, I can. If I only want “major medical” care and pay very little, I can. If I want to supply my employees with better than average medical care, I can. But when I am a start-up company, and every dime counts, I cannot provide insurance. Of course then I suffer because the good employees go elsewhere until I can afford to provide it. But the company survives and lives to employ 100s in the future. (from experience) I don’t think this company could have started with having to provide insurance or pay the penalties as they are suggesting today. How many potential employers will we be preventing? And lastly, I don’t want to have to fly to Asia to get my medical care because a bureaucrat says my condition is not serious enough. No one denies that the current health care system needs reform. No one know better than Violeta and I. The medical insurance we provide for our employees has been going up about 20% per year. What we need to do is put an end to frivolous law suits and have governmental oversight of the insurance industry. But I mean true oversight, not what we got from Barney Frank and Chris Dodd with the banking industry. But a government run health care system is not to America’s advantage.