I care about health care. Do you?

Health care should be included with membership in the United States. Every citizen should not only have access to adequate health care, but should not have to worry about bills related to their health care. I am a diabetic, and if i were not lucky enough to have a job that offered insurance coverage, I would be ineligible for "commercial" insurance due to this "pre-existing condition", and would have to pay ridiculous premiums to even afford the ICHIP program offered in Illinois. Everyone in this country preaches that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but I would argue that our right to life only works if you have a job, money, or are lucky enough to not get sick during your lifetime.

Health care has become an important issue for me within the last couple of years. I'm 23 years old without health care. I was diagnosed with a chronic illness when I was 22 and have since lost my health insurance. Currently, I have a job that will provide me with health benefits soon; however, putting in the hours in order to get these benefits have been a struggle for me. I don't see doctors, due to the costs, but luckily I am getting the medications that I need for free, thanks to generous donations. It hurts knowing that I live in a country that doesn't care about me. I hear so many comments saying that we should just keep things the way they are. In addition, so many people believe that people who are chronically ill should just work so that they can get the benefits. However, they forget that many of us who are ill can't work or have to limit the amount of hours that we work; thus, we are unable to get benefits. Private insurance companies won't insure us because we're 'high risk' and those that will insure us expect us to pay an unspeakable amount of money. It should be our right as citizens to have access to affordable, as well as good, health care. We are still human beings even though we're ill. We want to contribute to society, unfortunately our country isn't allowing us to do so since they are not giving us the health care we so desperately need. I'm uncertain if this tragic situation will change regardless of candidate. People in this country don't know what crisis we're in; but when they get sick too they'll find out., maybe not as early as I have, but they will sometime in their lifetime.

Our health insurance strategy is set up to weed out the people who need health care and health insurance benefits at the first opportunity. These opportunities come at every transition point such as moving off of parents' insurance plans, graduating from college or graduate school, and changing jobs.

Is it possible to insure everyone without underwriting? We already have a system of group health insurance where everyone is accepted without looking at their medical history. It is the big corporate health insurance plans. These actually show that it can be done. Big companies have health insurance plans that cover not only the employees but their spouses, children, and domestic partners without screening any of their medical history. How different is the cost per person in these companies of 10,000 or 100,000 people from the cost per person for averaging every person in the country?

I am 56. I was healthy (and really am still very healthy) except I was diagnosed 3 years ago with narcolepsy. All it takes to help me feel "almost" normal is a $1000. a month medicine. People with narcolepsy are considered uninsurable, due to the cost of medicines. I am on COBRA insurance now, and I will be looking for work in the next few months.

I think everyone should be covered with universal health insurance, assistance provided to people who cannot afford to pay all of it. Every other modern country has health care or universal health insurance. In this day and age when we have such wonderful medical knowledge and skills, everybody should have access to the same.

Health is a right, not a privilege, but until the U.S. wakes up, for those with a critical, or serious chronic condition, our fabulous National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov) is a viable option. They also cross over to the National Cancer Institute through the Pathology Divison–someone referred me there a few years ago, and they came up with information my local medics did not, plus I was not charged. They'll be in my Will.

In the case of illness, do not stop at your local community–get out and get well. Do anything to survive. To avoid a lot of illness, eat well (my Ob instructor used to say nothing in a bag, box, bottle or can...), don't take substances, and walk every day as if your life depended on it, or as if you lived in a city requiring mass transit. That saves people's lives, I swear.

The right to health care..should be amended to the Constitution. If you don't have your health and you don't have access to health care all the other constitutional rights are meaningless.

I'm glad you have health insurance. Don't be caught without it. I'm in my 40's, and a friend who just turned 40 is now dying, of throat cancer. She did not have health insurance and the ER doctor failed both to make the diagnose her properly, and to take her seriously–he was openly disdainful, as if he'd thought she had deliberately ruined her own throat in order to obtain pain medicine. In fact had she been diagnosed at that time, they would have discovered it to be a stage one cancer, but six months later it was IIB. Now she is dying and my heart is aching with anger and despair that something as different as an everyday in-office visit to a person's own health care provider vs. an ER doctor could result in such a a vast difference in the quality of health care that it would finally result in such a terrible waste of life.

Melanie, I should also add that it is probable that many cases of throat cancer are related to the same virus that causes cervical cancer. So my friend 's cancer could have been entirely preventable, if only she'd been able to get that HPV vaccine as a young woman. I never had children but if I had a teenage daughter, I'd have her get the shot in an instant. Funny how one little shot can replace so much suffering, and in a way none of us middle aged girls who are watching tour friend's throat cancer progress. would have EVER considered in our teens or twenties.

I also very much believe in universal health care. I also try to eat well to protect my health.

Hi!! I'm also 20 years old and I have also recently gained an intense interest in health care in this country. I think its really awesome that you are a medical intern for CNN at 20 years old and talking about this stuff because there aren't that many of us who care out there. I live in Washington DC, and contrary to what most people imagine, we are much more than the White House and the Monument. We have recently been dubbed with a reputation of having the biggest population living with HIV/AIDS. What most people fail to realize is that it is the YOUNG PEOPLE that are dying from this disease. Babies, teenagers, young adults who are born with the disease, who aren't given the information, who don't have the health insurance, and who don't even care enough about themselves to do something about it because they are smothered by our superficial society. It is literally a deadly system and though I wish to do much more about it, watching movies like 'Sicko', reading, dicussing and definetly voting will be the first steps of many.

I am 31 and my husband and I have not had health insurance for about 10 years.
We are not on welfare so we get no help and we can't afford to buy private health insurance while I am still in school.
Most employers are not required to offer health insurance, private insurance denies those who have serious 'pre-existing' health issues, private insurance is often too pricey for others, paying for medical care out of pocket is impossible unless you are wealthy, etc. There are so many reasons why the free enterprise version of health care is not working unless you are one of the wealthy or lucky.
If country-wide citizen health care is not going to be offered it should at least be affordable to pay for out of pocket.
I went through the destruction of our credit solely because of medical bills and I don't want to got through that again.

Many in this country would like to see Universal Health Care. Single payor. But we need to look at this issue closely. Many wanted WalMart in their towns and cities. And it drove out competition. So far WalMart has not become a monoply. But in a few years when all the other retail outlets and local MD's are gone WalMart will be able to charge the American public any amount it wants to and we will have to pay. Will it happen in our life times. It might.
The US government as fought hard to keep monoplies out of our system. Compitition benefits us all.
With UHC will we get dental care free also. After all, the scientists are telling us now that poor oral hygeine causes many diseases. Heart disease, diabetes to name a couple.
Should the US provide UHC for all Americans. Is it a right? My pursuit of happiness would involve a smokey green Mercedes.
Many thing we should be fair to every American and have equal health care for all. Does that mean that I get to go to Sloan-Kettering in NYC for my cancer treatment instead of my local rural hospital. Do I get care at Houston's Heart Institute when I live thousands of miles away. Will the government pay my airfare to get there or will I have to pay for it. Would that be fair to me because I've chosen to live so far away?

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" John Fitzgerald Kenndy.

I'm in my late-20s and have a rare genetic disorder that is progressive. The symptoms vary widely among those of us with this disorder, I am better than some, but not as lucky as others. I've been experiencing progression which is becoming more rapid. There have been some major scares and all that I've experienced let me see how broken the system is. Yet, as broken as it is, I don't really want it any other way.

Universal healthcare works for certain people. From talking to people with my disorder in other countries where nationalized/socialized healthcare is available, I was terrified for them. Though they have access, they seem to lack the variety of choices we have here in the US. Not to mention, if you are have a suspicion of cancerous mass, an 3 month wait for an MRI would be distressing to say the least. I've read people saying they had to wait a year to see a specialist, a lot can happen in a year. It seems to me, universal healthcare works well if you are healthy or have a 'common' disorder.

What needs to happen before anyone goes around preaching universal health care is, affordable insurances for all. Raise the max-income level caps on state/federal sponsored plans. Make it more affordable for employers to offer group plans to their employees and also important, make these state/fed/employer sponsored plans useable. A tightly controlled, limited-network provider plan isn't going to be much better than having no plan at all.

In response to the above comment by JY, I think most people would agree that the current system in the U.S. is in bad shape and is unsustainable in the future. One of the biggest problems with our profit driven free market system is that approximately 30% of our healthcare dollar is spent on administrative expenses where in other industrialized countries, these expenses are 5-7 %. A single payer system, if properly funded, would be an improvement over what we currently have. There are other nationalized systems in countries such as Germany and Switzerland where insurance companies are non-profit and highly regulated and are funded by tax dollars. There is no medical underwriting because these companies base their rates on a few very large risk pools. This prevents people from being punished financially for having conditions that are completely out of their control. It creates a more equitable system where everyone is covered, consumers have a choice of carriers and the administrative costs and overall per capita costs are much less than these costs in the U.S.

In reading these posts, I am stunned by how many people want universal health care. I agree wholeheartedly that our health care system needs an overhaul, but government-mandated heathcare? Really? Have you ever been to the post office?

I think a better solution is to regulate the private insurance sector so that they are required to accept all US citizens, regardless of preexisting conditions or ability to pay. Forget deductibles, simplify the whole structure and make people pay a fixed amount monthly, based on their annual earnings.

As nice as Hillary makes National Health Care sound, I think we would encounter more problems from reinventing the wheel than if we just shave off some of the bumps and keep our momentum. Afterall, those of us with incomes and no health problems are doing ok.

Of course we should all care and VOTE according to health care issues. It should be at the TOP of the presidential agenda, as a president should care for and provide for his people and his country.

We do not have a healthcare system, we have a SICKcare system set up to take care of people who get sick, instead of a proactive system set up to keep people healthy.

It just makes economic sense to spend a little bit of money now to keep people healthy unstead of ALOT of money later treating people who are sick or in end-stage disease.

I'm a 23-year old from Ohio living in Massachusetts....a state that has made universal healthcare a necessity for every individual. In fact, if a person is not covered, they are now candidates for a healthy tax fine. As an EMT, MPH and employee of a major medical institution, I find that this policy is altruistic in principle but is not entirely perceived as helpful by the public. Instead of placing an emphasis on primary care and explaining WHY the mandatory insurance measures have been put in place, the measure was discussed ad nauseum in my grad school classes....but did not seem to penetrate the public as it needed to. The US healthcare system has many positive aspects, but it is ridden with flaws. For instance, in 2007 the CIA ranked the mainland US as 45th of 221 international entities in life expectancy (78.06 y/o). With a system as costly as our's, this paradox is confusing. As a young person who has studied health care and works in the system, I think I know a decent amount about our health system but do not entirely understand it. However, when looking at the data about our current health system on both domestic and international levels, it seems that those in charge don't entirely understand it either.

I am 24 years old, and i am currently paying out of my own pocket for 8 months for my health insurance. I think its hard for people my age to have adequate coverage because many of us have odd jobs that dont provide insurance. There need to be more sites like http://www.dentalpricecompare.com and carol out there that help us that dont have proper insurance. My dental insurance only covers $500 a year, so i really used that site to help me get the most bang for my buck. My next plan is to get a good job that offers benefits. Until then, i will be paying out of pocket

I'm a career federal government employee and I know that depending on the Federal government to fix the National Healthcare System is a non-starter. I've never been in the medical profession but I'm a Technoprogressive and a Futurist and I believe that by bringing to bear a LOT of advanced IT, and other medical technologies towards these issues we have a shot at creating a cost-effective and efficacious National Healthcare System with universal access. The model I have in mind involves combining pushing the vast majority of primary care down into the "Home Care" environment. I feel that by employing Telemedicine technology in the home, combined with Personal Electronic Medical Records, that'll enable & empower the average healthcare consumer to monitor their own health and to manage injuries, chronic diseases and comply with healthy behavioral, dietary and lifestyle changes in a more cooperative manner. By taking advantage of the amount of households in this nation have PC's and Internet access, the average household can access a vast array of healthcare related information and websites with all sorts of tools and plans and management protocols that can be easily modified for individual households, and families. Care plans for individual persons within a household can be implemented and compliance can be monitored through numerous telemedicine peripheral devices. Telemedicine can allow individuals to monitor their own health in the privacy in their own homes and also provide their clinicians with a surveillance capability so that they can keep an eye on their patients health (subject to their patience compliance with the reporting protocol). I feel that instead of all of the classical solutions that are currently being offered, that what's needed is to reengineer the entire infrastructure so that all care except various types of intensive care, trauma & surgeries that can't be performed on an outpatient basis are pushed out into the community on a much more extensive basis than they are currently. The model that I've been developing envisions care being rendered in an inverted pyramid with telemedicine in the home at the bottom, at the next highest level of care would involve receiving a homecare visit from a trained caregiver, at the next highest level of care would be referrals to outpatient clinics, express clinics in Malls (or big box retailers like Walmart or Kmart) or MRI/CT centers, Ambulatory SurgiCenters/Day SurgiCenters or specialty care clinics and at the highest level of abstraction within the health care system, care would be rendered in hospitals that render services only in an intensive, acute care setting. Hospitals would also host the central telemedicine control centers from which primary care would be rendered remotely direct into the homes of patients. All other care would be rendered at a lower (but appropriate) level of abstraction within the healthcare system. In this way, a great deal of the physical infrastructure (and its associated costs) that currently constitutes our national healthcare system can be disintermediated. In addition, all of the clinics and SurgiCenters, and the hospitals can be networked on high-speed backbone that can also support the telemedicine system so that vast amounts of data and images can be shared effortlessly. Rendering as much Primary care in the home as is practicable thru the use of telemedicine combined with homecare visits will facilitate the implementation of preventative healthcare protocols & comprehensive chronic disease management protocols. The way I see it, if you can push the "healthcare system" down into individuals homes, and use it to promote healthier, wellness lifestyles with a preventative theme, then that should lesson the necessity of so many ER visits & re-hospitalizations or the (load) that is placed on the healthcare system. If the load is lessened, then that should provide opportunities for disintermediating brick & mortar healthcare infrastructure.

I would appreciate it if someone from the campaign would contact me so that I could get assistance on developing this concept further. Thank you.

Turning 18 just this year, I have never thought about this issue. Stumbling upon this article it makes me realize the substantial amount of people in this country that do not have health care. I do not believe that health care benefits should be handed out to everyone. Most Americans want to say health care should be given to everyone but no one thinks about the amount of money as a country we would be losing. Just a thought.

Consumers need to be aware of the quality of the hospital, nursing home, surgery center, etc... A great place to look is a website that has consumer ratings, along with medicare rankings of these healthcare providers. http://www.wheretofindcare.com even has listings of charity care providers nation wide, for the underinsured/uninsured.

First, health insurance in the US isn't really insurance – it's a pre-paid health plan. The more you use it (and abuse it) the more the prices will go up. Preventative treatment will always be cheaper (and more readily covered) than waiting until you are in the ER.

Second, most "national" health plans in other countries are funded by taxes. I, for one, am tired of existing taxes and know that I can buy a better plan through my employer than what those equivalent dollars would buy through taxes.

Third, good health is not a right as an American. Good health is the results of genetics, nutrition, behavior, and prevention. While you may not be able to control all of those factors, it is not our's government's responsibility to make up those short comings. Do you really think universal healthcare would turn out any better than Social Security?

Is our health care great? No, not by a long shot. But trying to implement universal healthcare means everyone gets crappy treatment, and those with the means don't have the option to get better treatment. You may want the government to pick up the tab, but I would rather fend for myself.

I just turned 29 in June. I haven't had health care since the Air Force dropped me from my Dad's Tri-Care plan when I turned 23. I currently have a job that offers health and dental insurance but I can't participate because I can't afford it; I need every last cent of my check to pay my bills and even that's not enough. I'm looking for another job to try to supplement my income so that I can finally afford some coverage.

Every day I'm worried/scared that something could happen to me and that the medical treatment will devaste me so financially that I'll never be able to get out from under it. I'm super cautious doing everything such as crossing the street. I can't afford to have to go see a doctor for anything. I haven't been to the dentist in years. I worry I may lose my teeth. I worry about a lot of things, but I can't afford to go to the doctor for him to tell me I'm overreacting. I exercise regularly and take supplements daily; that will have to do until I can do better.

This country is so desperate need of universal health care. [I don't think this health care should be government sponsored, but have governmnet oversight to handle complaints, etc] I'd be more than willing to pay extra taxes to guarantee my health and peace of mind. What critics/insurance companies don't take into account is that universal care is cheaper than standard care because it involves a lot preventative care. For companies worried about the bottom line catching things early (living removing colon polyps or strange skin lesions) is much cheaper than paying for cancer treatments and drugs. Early intervention can also warn people to change their habits before they become a Type II diabetic, have high cholesterol, or other disease. Imagine a healthier nation of more people able to work and enjoy life.

My husband and I are baby boomers and both have hepatitis C from tattoos. The insurance companies are still considering Inferon treatment experimental and not willing to cover it. I am proof it works. We need to force the insurance companies to cover this and other treatments that are proven to work. If you have had a tattoo run dont walk to your doctor and be tested. This can be treated. E mail your representative to pressure the insurance companies to start giving us the coverage we have so rightfully paid for all these years. It is

Amanda K, i totally feel what your saying. I'm in that same kind of predicament. In that in between phase between school and a real career and real benefits. I actually found a better site than the one you posted, you should check out http://smarthealthbuyer.com. Its like the one you listed, it gives dental prices, but also prices for things like optical, chiropractic, skin care, and some other things as well

I am 29. I am an Internal Medicine Physician about to complete my last year in residency. I know this blog is a year old, so I do not know if anyone will read my comment, but nonetheless I have something to say.

Heathcare... Medicine is not what it used to be. Older doctors tried to tell me medicine is changing for the worse. But bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I did not listen.

I am a young doctor, but I am also a doctor with the greatest understanding of humanity, humility, self-preservation, and pride. I am a resident. Need I say more? I am not driven by money. I am $300,000 in medical school debt and have paid $1,300 to date.

I am tired. I have often clocked 90 hours a week in the last 2 years. It is an intangable gift to have this knowledge, but it is also a curse to completely lose the reason you have joined this field. And why would someone lose that reason? Because they have been awake 32 hours, a nurse is angry (and she sleeps at night), and your patient just told you that he hates "this hospital and all of you terrible doctors." And believe me, it happens.

So if one is going to ask another what is wrong with healthcare, ask a resident. We are the pulse of the perspective.

A topic that gets me to my guts: unnecessary tests. Sure this happens. But why? The reason is different in different settings. Everyone is quick to point a finger saying, "Doctors want to avoid lawsuits," or ,"Doctors make more money when they order more tests." In reality, half of the doctors in this country are paid salary. They do not make an extra dime for pursuing extra tests.

Let me illustrate an example that seems to get lost in the media. As a primary care doctor and hospital doctor, I cannot tell you the number of patients who say, "Well, if you're gonna do it, you better do it right. I want the MRI." Meanwhile, I have offered them only lumbar X-rays. The problem is that they do not NEED the MRI. They just want it. Because it is the best. Not because it changes anything in the outcome, but because it is a prettier picture. Every American thinks that they deserve the most detailed work-up no matter if they have worked for it or not and if they can afford it or not.

My point is that a driving force in excess testing is due to ourselves. Americans as patients. We want to live forever. We do not respect death. And we think we deserve it. We are the world's definition of excess. Sadly, most Americans do not realize how terrible the quality of life can be once you get life sustaining measures. It, too, has a cost.

Why is this so hard to understand? Because the media has painted a fairy tale that current medicine is a "cure." It is not a cure. It is often a bandage. And this leaves our patients angry, hurt, mistrusting and depressed when they realize the consequences.

To change healthcare, we must first change our attitudes.