It is high time to realize this country needs a single-payer system.

[excerpt from a previous post]

A few anecdotal reasons why I think so:

• Chicken dinner fundraisers

As admirable as it is for members of a community to band together and raise money for a family with a kid sick with leukemia or a dad injured in an accident or a mom with some form of cancer, you have to realize there is something wrong when families have to go to such a struggle to pay hospital bills. These would not be needed with a single-payer system.

• The recalled ambulance

As a reporter, I'd sometimes hear about a car accident on the newsroom scanner. Then we'd hear the  ambulance dispatched to the scene. Then, a few minutes later the ambulance would be recalled. The injured person has declined care. They didn't want to go to the emergency room because they couldn't afford it.

• My $34,000 hospital bill

In 2006, I was hospitalized for two weeks with a clot in my liver. At the time, I was covered by Blue Cross, provided by the Star-Gazette. But a few weeks after I came home from the hospital. they sent me a bill for $34,000. Sticker shock! This had been caused by a billing error, and after repeated calls between Blue Cross and the Arnot Ogden billing department, it eventually got resolved. But I would not forget this lesson on how it felt to not have health insurance. Scary!

• My sister Jane, who has Multiple Sclerosis

In March 2017, I was headed to a town hall meeting with Congressman Tom Reed. I asked Jane to toss me some facts to throw at Reed. She said, "It's very scary to have a disease that can knock you out of life without warning. It's scarier still to worry that you won't be able to get the treatment you need. There's no cure (yet) but there are meds and treatments that can help folks live an easier life, but meds can cost $50-80k annually. It's difficult to communicate the level of fear, but it's very real."

• The numbers

The costs of public vs private insurance coverage can be debated, but Medicare operates with a much smaller overhead (about 3 percent) than private health insurance (about 10 percent to 20 percent). Why does private health insurance cost so much more? Bureaucracy -- at both the insurance companies - who often require patients to jump through hoops to get their treatment approved - and at the hospitals and doctors offices where staff must fill out the documentation to get the bills paid.