It is disturbing to watch Speaker Pelosi chastise medical insurance companies for being profitable at the expense of the consumer. The very fact that a company is profitable intimates that the product is good because consumers keep purchasing it. The fact is 80% of consumers are satisfied with their private health care. Democrats in Congress are scrambling to overhaul health care, now when America is in a deficit free for all, and the economy is in a recession. It is unnecessary, too expensive, and has the potential to create a medical care system that is government run. It all boils down to politics. Since the Democrats run both Houses in Congress, plus the presidency, it is an opportunity to force their socialist ideology down our throats.

We need go no further than up North to Canada to see how government run health care has failed the consumer. Canadians wait on long lines to get treatment for illnesses, surgery, MRIs, you name it. Often times, Canadians who can afford it, will travel to the United States for their medical care. The Canadian government spends about half of GDP on healthcare. This is the kind of change a socialist ideology can bring about.

Using my personal experience, let’s compare and contrast. It was 1997, I had private health care insurance through my small business employer. My employer paid 60%, I paid 40% (pre-taxed) or approximately $16 a week for a family plan. Out of pocket expenses were limited to small co-payments, and all payments to the insurance company were tax deductible.

If the government offered a public insurance policy at the time, the likelihood is that I would have opted to save the $16 a week and join the publicly offered plan. The reality, however, is that my small business employer probably would not be offering the health insurance anyway. Why pay into a private insurance company when the government will provide health care for free? (Of course, nothing is for free, and it is always the tax payer that pays in the end.) Government medical insurance policies will likely squeeze out private insurance ones or at best, force them to raise rates. Either way, I probably would not have had much of a choice, except accept the government program as my own.

The only symptom that presented was a constant headache. When migraine and other medications did not work, my primary care physician sent me to several specialists including a neurologist who scheduled an MRI. The MRI revealed that I had a pituitary tumor. With private health insurance, from first seeing my primary care physician to the MRI results, just 14 days had passed.

Under a public plan, reaction to my complaint would probably have come about more slowly. Since I was relatively young (28 years old) with no other symptoms presenting, it is quite possible the government would have declined an MRI request. Even if an MRI was authorized, I would likely have to wait. Would so much time elapse that I would start to convince myself that the headache was a figment of my imagination and an MRI was not needed?

The next step in this process was to see an endocrinologist who offered two scenarios for me. I could treat the tumor with steroids or I can have the tumor surgically removed. I chose the latter and after choosing one of three neurosurgeons that I visited, the surgery was scheduled within 14 days, at incidentally one of the best hospitals in the country.

Under a public plan, a case could have been made for me to treat with steroids first, before jumping into surgery. I may not have had a choice as to which neurosurgeon would be conducting the surgery, even if the surgery was offered. No one knows how long a wait I would have had, and whether the tumor would have grown even larger. Could I have traveled to Canada for better care?

Do not let politics or ideology get in the way of your decision making on this issue. Medical care is of life and death importance. It would be irresponsible of us to allow elected officials to put our health on the line, just so that they can run health care (as if they knew how), and the insurance companies can go bankrupt. Now is the time to tell your representatives to put American lives ahead of party politics.