If government “doesn’t do things very well”, as you assert, then why is Medicare, the government-run single-payer health insurance plan for all Americans from the age of 65 and over, still widely accepted by the American people, and why does opinion survey after opinion survey reveal that people on Medicare are more satisfied with their health care and their insurance than are the bulk of Americans on private health insurance?

If the private sector does so much better than the public sector, why is it that our private for-profit health care system spends twice as much per person on health care than any other country in the world? Why do we spend at least 50% more of GDP on health care than any other developed country in the world? And why, even when our private insurance-based system spends so much more than any other country, do we now have over 50 million Americans uninsured, why do we have worse outcomes in so many areas than countries with national health care, why is our infant mortality rate so much higher than those countries, why is it that half of all mortgage foreclosures in America result from overwhelming health care-related expenses, why is it that nearly two-thirds of all individual bankruptcies result from health care-related expenses that they can’t pay? If the government does everything so badly, why is it that no one in Britain or Canada or France or Australia or Japan fears going bankrupt and losing their homes if they become seriously ill or incur an injury that requires a great deal of care or numerous surgeries? Why do those countries with government-run health insurance protect their citizens from those sickness and injury-related financial catastrophes, while our private sector insurance actually inflicts them on Americans?

If the private sector does so well and the government sector performs so poorly, how do you explain how miserably private health insurance has performed in this country, while Medicare is esteemed far higher by those on it?

And could you please answer my question about Greenwich Hospital? I take your point that they treated you and your son very well and with courtesy when he came in with an earache. But don’t they treat all patients coming into the hospital that way, whether they are on private insurance or Medicare or Medicaid?

And just how much did you have to spend for your son’s earache, both the deductable and the amount charged to your insurance company? Because it is precisely the high cost of health care that is such a problem in this country.

Simple, polite questions. I would really appreciate a response.

And just curious, but aren’t Medicare patients also seen at that same hospital? Don’t they receive the same courteous treatment? If so, if the hospital gives prompt and courteous treatment to patients on government health insurance just as they do patients on private health insurance, what is the problem?

In this health care reform, no one is talking about taking over Greenwich Hospital, but simply reforming health insurance. Given that nearly two-thirds of all people filing personal bankruptcies in this country are forced to because of overwhelming health care-related expenses and debt, wouldn’t it make sense to eliminate that enormous waste that is the overhead going to the mainly unproductive middle man- the for-profit insurance companies? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to pass through, oh say 98 cents of every health care dollar to doctors and hospitals and producers of medical devices, as Medicare does now, rather than having the non-productive private health insurance companies retain 31 cents of every dollar of insurance premiums that they handle as they do now?

So what was the bill for your son’s earache treatment at Greenwich Hospital? I’m curious.