Yes Larry, brilliant argument. The real terrible tragedy of a Canadian system is that you would end up paying HALF what you pay now for health care... but some of that would go to treating sick poor people. We certainly can't have that. Much better to pay double for the same care but make sure none of it goes to the poor because that's just *wrong*. It's much better for all that extra money to go to the legal departments of private insurance companies, where armies of lawyers are diligently working away trying to figure out how to deny you payment for something you need to have done because that would negatively impact their profit margins. Wow, how did I not see that before? Sign me up to double my health care costs as long as I can be absolutely assured that the only people getting any of that money are doctors, health care executives, and their lawyers and accountants and ABSOLUTELY NOT any sick unemployed people!

Then get OFF of your can, work more or get a better job and you will be able to afford insurance. Why should we have to pay for lazy people ???? Quit sponging off of people that work harder than you. Lazy democrats want other people to take care of them. Get off of your can !!

And since 2000 characters wasn't enough to address all the horrendous information contained in that article... Yes Senator, maybe the government should do something to help those small businesses with the burdens they face providing health insurance to their employees. Like, possibly *largely removing that burden* from every small business employer like the Canadian system does? And did you seriously just say other countries with universal coverage "limit access"? You, the Senator in the country where up to 40% of the population has inadequate access to health care because they can't afford it? Or does denying all those people proper care based on their bank balances not count as "limited access" in your world? Ever heard a saying that involves glass houses and the wisdom of the hurling of projectiles while living in them? Or was that just a really poorly thought out joke? It is astonishing to me that a public official charged with administering to the well being of their constituency would engage in the kind of grossly distorted argument against the adoption of a clearly superior system that would greatly benefit that constituency that I just saw printed in this article. It would be one thing is this was a theoretical exercise, but it isn't. We don't think universal coverage plans work better, we darn well *know* it for a fact. Because every other industrialized first world nation on the planet has been using some variant of them for decades.... and they are ALL outperforming the system in the United States. Last time I checked, the U.S. was ranked by the WHO somewhere between Costa Rica and Cuba for what a wonderful health care system it has. So how about we do away with the political fiction that the Republican party has clung to for the last many decades that the government can't do *anything* right? There are in fact some things the government just does better. A military is one. Health insurance is another. Just face reality already.

It's bad enough to see this from average people who just don't know better, but coming from a U.S Senator it is simply inexcusable. Senator McConnell should be deeply ashamed of himself for writing this. Yes, the "real nightmare" is the one the people of Canada are experiencing in their system. They must spend their days wailing in anguish over the fact that their system costs HALF as much as the one in the States. (For those not interested in doing the math, if the U.S. system had a per capita cost equal to the Canadian system cost it would save the U.S. 700 Billion dollars. EVERY YEAR. Oh, and did I mention they equal or exceed the U.S. system performance in most studies of health outcomes? The horror... And I'm convinced they lose sleep every night knowing that their health coverage isn't dependent on their employment situation, so they can get laid off and still see their doctor the next week while they job hunt. And the terror they must feel walking in and out of a hospital or doctor's office and never having to fill out an insurance form or deal with a billing department. And the despair they must experience when they never during the course of their entire lives get to hear the words "pre-existing condition" from some accountant denying them coverage. What a nightmare the Canadian system is... because my aunt Sally who lives in Ottawa? She said that this guy had to be sent to a hospital over the border to get a procedure. We'll ignore the tens of millions in the U.S. either denied coverage or left totally underinsured. Look! Anecdotal evidence that says the Canadian system is scary! Run for your lives! And I'm sure the Senator knows this but didn't care to say, Canadians DON'T HAVE government run health care. It's government provided INSURANCE. The health care sector is private. They just bill the gov. for procedures instead of having to negotiate with hundreds of independent profit gouging lawyer ridden private insurance providers.