Free health care?!

I'm hoping the title to Michael Moore's sequel to "Sicko" will be "Just Kidding."

He and many Americans, including Dr. Carroll at your HealthCare Summit (June 26), are in collective denial about the disaster that single-payer health care would bring: the infamous waiting lists for tests and treatment found with the Canadian system, soaring costs of Medicare/Medicaid and TennCare, rationing of treatments for more serious and costly diseases like cancer, and bureaucrats influencing medical decision-making that should only take place confidentially between a patient and a physician.

Is nobody shocked that Washington politicians model one such single-payer proposal (HB-686) on the soon-to-be-bankrupt Medicare? Does anyone care that Moore's advocacy of greater regulation of the pharmaceutical industry would only further stifle innovation at a time when we need it most to cure such devastating diseases as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes?

The 208 Commission on Health Care Reform will present a final plan to the Colorado legislature later this year. So far, the four runner-up proposals recommend greatly increased government control of health-care access and funding.

As a nurse who takes care of patients with many serious and chronic diseases, I can assure you that if you think our health care system is so bad now - despite the tremendous advances in life-saving and life-enhancing treatments - it will crash and burn under statewide or nationwide socialized medicine.

Gina Liggett, RN
Denver
westandfirm.org

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