Introducing.....

Meet Ted. Ted is the patriarch of an old money family. Ted has everything that a person could want....wealth, a loving family, a great job with fantastic benefits....and brain cancer. The diagnosing doctors said that the tumor was inoperable and that Ted should get his effects in order. Ted took his great benefits and wealth and found an oncologist who specialized in "inoperable" tumors. The surgeon decided that the tumor was operable and today Ted is recovering from a successful surgery to remove the tumor.

Meet Kathy...Kathy is a cancer survivor. She chronicled her battle with "the Big C" at her blog Cake Eater Chronicles. Kathy also had the opportunity to get a second opinion when it came to her cancer treatment, something that was denied to a grandmother in the U.K. (as reported by Kathy H/T Mitch)

A Grandmother whose free NHS treatment was withdrawn because she paid privately for anti-cancer drugs has died.

Yesterday Linda O'Boyle's husband condemned the policy behind the decision and said it had made his dying wife's last months even more stressful.

Mrs O'Boyle, 64, had been receiving state-funded treatment - including chemotherapy - for colon cancer.

But when she took cetuximab, a drug which promised to extend her life but is not available on the NHS, her health trust made her start paying for her care.

Advocates of "single payer" health care here in the US claim that the program is not "government run" but as we saw during the health care debate here in Minnesota that is simply not the case. It is government run and the government will decide who gets what treatment and when....like they already do no

Meet Nancy. Nancy is a 71 year old woman with multiple chronic problems. Her daughters have seen her through bout after bout of hospitalizations due to mysterious collapses. After the last collapse (where she was taken to a different hospital), doctors determined that a weak heart, anemia and high blood pressure medication were combining to cause the mysterious black-outs. Nancy is on Medicare who has paid for some of her treatments, but most of the treatments have been paid for by private insurance and out of pocket. Nancy worries that Medicare (who will not pay for a much needed motorized scooter/wheelchair) will dump her because of the costs of her recent treatments.

Meet Linda - Linda was injured on the job (health care aid working with troubled children). Because of her injury to her knee, her back is now also injured. She has had multiple surgeries (including neck fusion) that has left her permanently disabled and on multiple strong pain medications. Recently it was discovered that she had Basel Cell Cancer in one eye. She was scheduled to have surgery to get the cancer removed when OUR government run health care dropped her. It has been one year since she lost her health care and the cancer still has not been removed and is probably spreading.

Is this really the kind of health care that we want to subject ourselves to? Is this what is best for our children and grandchildren...a system that tosses you out when you get to the point where you "cost too much" for the system...where you use too many resources? That is what Universal Health Care will give us if we are not careful!

Cross posted at State House Call a new place to find my Health Care Policy musings.