Do We Want A Government Health Care Takeover?

Having spent the last 5 months dealing with the nightmare of my sons newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes - I've been able to see health care in America a little more 'up close and personal' than I ever have before. After the initial panic of realizing that our personal health insurance policy was woefully insufficient to cover our son's disease, I was then blown away at how many other groups, organizations and resources were available for people like me who have catastrophic and reoccurring medical bills.

Just to give you an idea of what my son must have every month to simply survive - the supplies include: two types of insulin, blood glucose meter's, blood testing strips (he uses 8 of these per day and they cost $1 a piece), lancets, syringes, alcohol swab, glucose tablets, emergency glucose gel, glucagon emergency kit, Ketostix test strips and gauze pads. The monthly cost of these supplies is about $650 - Not to mention the software and palm pilot he carries to track his blood glucose level, carbohydrate intake and daily insulin corrections.

Yes, health care is expensive - ridiculously expensive. Good health insurance is equally expensive.

So am I ready for a government takeover of the health insurance industry? Absolutely not. Not now - not ever. That would be disaster of Biblical proportion in my opinion.

While I strongly believe that health insurance companies need to be regulated by the government - that should be the extent of government involvement in health care. The American health care system is certainly not perfect and needs to be tweaked - but I'd much rather have this system as is than have a government bureaucrat handling my medical affairs. Our system, while flawed, is still better than the rest of the world.

To see a good example of what happens when the government takes over health care - check out how much fun they're having with the government run model already in place in Canada.

Something has become crystal clear to me over the past months of frequent doctor, hospital, pharmacy visits and hours and hours of research that my wife and I have done: No one in America goes without health care unless they choose to.

In order to to help sell the very bad idea of government operated health care - we repeatedly hear about the 40 plus million Americans who are uninsured - and certainly that is concerning. But have you ever wondered who these Americans are who have no health care?

Here's the list that brings clarity of thinking to who these millions of people are who don't have health insurance:

Who are the uninsured in America?*

10 million illegal immigrants.
15 million who are eligible for Medicaid but don't apply.
15 million adults whose children are eligible for free insurance - but don't sign up.
10 million childless adults - many of whom choose to go without insurance to save money.

Rather eye-opening isn't it?


(*Statistics from the book, Fleeced, by Dick Morris.)