health care debate

ok- so here I go throwing my hat into the ring..

I believe strongly that we should have a public option for healthcare in the US-
and if that is considered "liberal" or...gasp.."socialist", so be it. I am proud to be someone who cares about living things- be it plants, animals, or even..humans

I would be dead today if Italy didn't have socialized health care- My appendix ruptured while I was living there (actually, right after I returned from a long trip to the US) I was operated on, and stayed in the hospital for 6 days- all without paying a penny.

OK, so, the room wasn't private, and no TV, plus you had to go down the hall for the bathroom..and things weren't super modern.. (after all it WAS the hospital that Leonardo daVinci used to do his anatomical dissections in)

But the point is that I HAD health care in Italy- no questions....

and I Still wonder if my appendix had ruptured one week earlier, while I was visiting the US...and had no insurance (because at that time I was living in Florence)
what would have happened to me? I most likely would have tried to "tough it out" and avoid the ER, because I would have been worried about being saddled with a lifetime of medical bills-

While I was in the hospital a young american girl was admitted to my room.

She had been backpacking in Europe and ended up also with appendicitis while in France..she was operated on there, and decided to join her friends in Italy after they discharged her from the French hospital..

Well, needless to say, not a good idea...she ended up in incredible pain, and came to the Florence hospital straight from the train station...

I became her interpreter- and when her father showed up from the US, he was so grateful to the doctors for helping her...

The only thing I had a hard time translating for the father was when he asked where to pay the hospital bill.. He couldn't believe that his daughter was taken care of by a team of doctors and admitted to the hospital without charge. It was profound for him..

During this time of debate over health coverage in the US, I wonder what he (the father) is thinking about socialized medicine... I'll bet that he isn't out in the packs of demonstrators waving pics of Obama as Hitler.. No-I'll bet that he goes and hugs his daughter