This is a HOT topic.

In my case, my employer pays a contribution to my insurance - but then they also deduct $ from my paycheck...and THEN I still have Dr office copays and scrip copays - even WITH insurance, it is likely to cost me roughly $60 just to see the Doc and get meds.  (after I've laready shelled out 60 bucks a month just to HAVE isnurance!)  I generally DON'T go to the Doc unless I absolutely HAVE to. 

To insure my kids and spouse would cost me HALF MY MONTHLY INCOME!!!!!  That is just NUTS - and then we still would have Co-pays!  It is not sensible to insure them, at that rate.  Luckily they have stayed healthy and safe from any injuries (at least the kids have - spouse just suffers, not necessarily in silence either)

Here's the kicker:  I make JUST enough that we don't qualify for Medicare any more!  So there is NO option for the working poor like myself and my family - except out-of-pocket health care. 

In the US, however, ANY ONE CAN get health care.  Hospitals will not and CAN NOT deny you care.  They have programs for indigent people...they write off huge bills that people can not pay. 

Insurance companies and pharmaseutical companies are a HUGE part of the problem.  THEY are the ones who are making the cost of Helath care skyrocket.

I don't follow politics and figure that my opinion wont change ANYTHING Washington does, so I just sit back and wait to see what The Powers That Be hand down to us. 

Now - the real issue is how we as a culture deal with how we care for (OR prolong the dying of) dying people - and babies that NATURE says shouldn't be alive.    For example - my FIL died last year.  In his last 48 hours of life doctors determined he needed $80,000 worth of care...medicaid funds...and they knew he was dying.  How much good did that do? None.  It just spent more gov't $$$ uneccesarily.   When this bill goes through, I wonder how we as a country will look at those kind of issues?

 But that is a can of worms too big to open here I think.

And I don't care if you agree with me, or not.  I don't care if you slam me for my opinions.  They are mine.  No one will change that.  You are entitiled to yours - I don't care what it is, and I don't want to change it either.   

Fran and Andi - I am glad to see that this didn't go as sour as it looked like it might have!