The European system is financed by a punishing tax rate and rations healthcare by preventing the latest medical technology and pharmaceutical products from being utilized, a process that leads many wealthy Europeans and political figures to quietly seek treatment in the United States.

The European and Canadian systems are subsidized by the U.S. system since lawsuits in those countries are largely prohibited and American technology and pharmaceuticals are arbitrarily priced by those governments. America is also providing healthcare, via our emergency rooms, to 25 million citizens of another country, a problem no European nation is facing.

The insurance industry has any number of annoying policies and procedures, but they provide a necessary buffer between the healthcare users and the people and businesses funding the system. Those who harbor the utopian belief that once insurance companies are out of the picture costs will be reduced are not looking at the whole picture. Whatever "gains" you achieve by eliminating insurance companies will be lost creating a series of massive government bureaucracies populated by a large number of unionized workers annually demanding wage and benefit increases.

At least 253 million people have healthcare in the United States and are reasonably satisfied with the product they are receiving. This explains why the healthcare "crisis" has gained little or no traction with the public at large and has never survived a general vote.

— Geoff Irvin, Newbury Park