Anecdotal Evidence for Health Care Reform

Reader Jarret forwarded a link to the Avaaz.org site where folks from countries with national health care share stories about how successful their systems are. Many of these stories refer to single payer systems managed by the government which is different from what congress is proposing. However, I found that each of these stories spoke of an overwhelming sense of relief that the person's maladies were taken care of and the threat of bankruptcy was non-existent. This insightful post caught my eye:

• I am a specialist physician working in a large Australian public hospital. When the American public see advertisements maligning universal health care systems such as that in which I work, the most important question to ask is - who paid for this? The answer every time will demonstrate in whose interest the current system operates. This is never the public. This is the reason that no government in any developed country, no matter how conservative or pro-market, will ever be able to remove universal health care - they would be drummed out of office by the people at the first opportunity.
  by Dr Ben Cowie

It's nice to see stories from people who actually use these systems rather than the spin that has been coming from certain pundits.