Many people expressed reservations about government-run health care systems by pointing out that Medicare is a mess of bureaucracy and is going broke. However, I’ve been a Medicare recipient for several years now and I have to say that my experience with it has been uniformly positive.

To address the idea that Medicare is going broke, one problem with our entitlement programs is that the government borrows from them to shore up the U. S. treasury. If that money were repaid, such programs as Medicare and Social Security would remain in good shape well into the future.

As with Social Security, we pay for Medicare when we’re on the job. Unlike Social Security, we continue to pay for Medicare after we retire. Every month, the government takes a certain amount of money, less than $100 a month, to pay for my Medicare coverage. At the same time, Medicare recipients have to buy a supplemental health insurance policy to pay for the services that Medicare doesn’t cover. Being a lifetime NEA member, I was able to do that though NEA. Even with all these costs, I pay less for health insurance coverage than I paid when I was working full time.

Then there’s the prescription drug coverage, with its insane labyrinth of donut holes and generics vs. brand names drugs that people have to navigate. I’m fortunate enough not to have to take too many drugs and they’re all generics, but I know people who find themselves in dire straits when their drug coverage runs dry. I had hoped that the health care reform push would fix this. I have no idea what the status of the prescription drug coverage is now.

Recently, I had major surgery. I had the best treatment a human being could have and I’m recovering well. As I reflect on my experience, I realize my major responsibilities related to the surgery included always having my Medicare and my supplemental insurance cards with me when I went for an appointment and making sure I got to the many appointments on time. It seems since the last time I had major surgery twenty years ago, the health care system has decided to make sure the patient gets clearance for every possible health problem that could rear its ugly head. As it turned out, I was pronounced in shape for the surgery, I had it, and I was out of the hospital and on the mend within a week, all this with little or no bureaucracy to deal with.

As a side note, I could cite the example of my husband who as a Vietnam-era veteran is able to make use of the VA system. This system, at least at the Robert Dole VA in Wichita, runs without a hitch. He gets good care and cheap prescription coverage. Not everyone qualifies for the VA, as it is a means-tested program, but we do and he has found that it is one of the best government-run programs he’s had experience with.

My point here is that the government can run these health care programs just as efficiently, if not more so, than private insurance companies, the bottom line of which is first and foremost profits. When people talk about the imaginary “death panels’ in government-run health care programs, they ignore the people who get cut off by their private health insurance carriers if they run up too many bills or if they have a pre-existing condition. In fact, the people who need health insurance the most are the ones most likely to be too sick to fight the system.

Since my surgery, I’ve lost track of where the health care reform push has ended up. Apparently, the election of the Cosmo Republican in Massachusetts has put reform in jeopardy. I believe even before that event, there were too many forces against meaningful health care reform for it to ever happen. That’s too bad. It would be a good thing if everyone could have the excellent government-run health care coverage that my husband and I have.