State:: MO

Occupation:: respiratory therapist/PCP office manager and co-owner

I am a respiratory therapist since 1998 and my wife, who is a physician, opened our family phycian office in 2006.
I also have to add that I have some medical problems and can speak as a patient.
It is very important to mention that I and my wife came to US 20 years ago from Soviet Union where my wife was also a doctor. We struggeled many years until we became who we are now.
I think that all mentioned above gives me better prospective and makes my analysis more objective.
I want to assure everybody that you do not want and will not like goverment run health care. Let me explain why.
Mainly because it is always limited by a certain budget.
It was a main problem in all socialist countries. First they did not have enough money to by necessary equipment or supplies. We always experienced shortages and were 20 years behind all western countries.This situation was very discoraging for many doctors, especially in combination with very low pay.
In this country the idea of financing health care by goverment is utopia and people who count on it are symply naive. If in socialist countries goverment allocated money it made( all indusrtries belonged to the goverment and it created goods and wealth) here it does not make money.So here, the only way for US goverment to make money to finance health care is- tax us more.
Now go to any medical facility run by goverment and you will see the difference compare to a private or non profit institutions. You do not want to bring your sheets or medications to a hospitals because they do not have them and I am sure nobody in USA wants to wait for 45 minutes an ambulance to arive, like I saw it in Canada and former USSR.
Now, lets look at current problems in health care.

#1.Every single day working at a hospital I see dozens of cases when doctors order unnecessary procedures or treatments just insure themself from being sued.It happens everywhere at medical institutions and reasonable TORT reform could have saved a lot of money. Speaking of money, who pays for those unnecessary tests and procedures?
Either goverment or insurance companies or patients.So when goverment spends a lot of money and can’t increase taxes to cover its spending it can only reduce services and payment to doctors(reimbursment) That is exactly what it is going.
Insurances do the same.Plus they increase deductibles, co-pays and of course premiums.They have to make money.They start losing it when we add our children to the policies and pay very little in addition to what we have paid.
I want my son to be on my policy almost for free but insurance does not.

#2People must work(except those who physically unable) to have Medicaid.Otherwise they do not appreciate it.They do not follow doctor’s recomendations, and as a rule, have a lot of medical problems and cannot be refered to many doctors they need, because those specialists do not like goverment reimbursement.Once again, I think that WORK should be main criteria for Medicade eligibility. Even now I see a lot of places are hiring.I have been in such situation myself.

#3 Small businesses shoud be able to join and buy insurance at corporate rate.Why 20-30 medical offices cannot officialy join to create some type of professional organisation similar to union and purchase insurance policies for their employees.

#4 Pharmaceutical companies should be restrained somehow from imposing outrages prices on consumers.
In conclusion please do not be confused. Government health care never worked well anywhere.There a few other steps can be taking here to provide uninsured with healthcare coverage.