Nothing saddens me like this. I mean, how often I hear about the suffering that it causes. Not having guaranteed health care. Not having guaranteed and affordable access to medication. The most powerful country in the world, the wealthiest, has evolved a system that leaves its citizens on their own. Insured, or not insured. Pre-existing conditions. Exempted here. Percentage there. Too many rules. Not enough care.

As a Canadian, I need merely identify myself, to obtain care. Ya, there are wait lists. It's not perfect, either. With visits to medical specialists included, I bet I have 30 doctor appointments a year, just now. A good bit of that oversight is due to my pain condition, and the requirement that opiate prescriptions can never be refilled, but only rewritten, so I need to visit to get my prescriptions. Still, I pay not a penny for this care. My taxes are higher, but my government does more for me. I could not afford my own care right now, but my government cares for me, anyway.

Now, if my government deems me above a certain level of poverty, yes I would pay full medication costs, but those are still lower than in the US, and many employers insure for that as a routine benefit. In different markets, the same medication goes for very different prices. There might be only one pharmaceutical factory in the world turning out a particular medication, but the company making it puts different prices on it for different markets. And, for some reason, Americans generally pay the highest drug prices in the world. So, even if I do have to pay for my drugs, I pay less. But, if I'm in that real impoverished class, I pay $2 per prescription.

I don't generally have to worry about getting cared for. I just wish it was the same for everybody.

I read an economic analysis that declared that if administrative costs related to HMOs were simply dedicated to patient care, there's already enough money in the system to give care to all Americans. Unfortunately, that would also require the termination of those people whose employment is in that administrative realm, but......it seems to be a matter of politics, from my Canadian perspective. It saddens me that 40 or 50 million Americans don't have security of medical care. It saddens me immensely.

Sincerely,
Lar