I have a good full-time job. I buy the health insurance my Human Resources Dept tells me to buy. (This is not, by the way, a “free market” as described by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and other neo-classical economists.) I pay enough that I could be driving a Hummer  about 2,400 miles per month (at current gas prices).

But my coverage is rationed by insurance company beancounters. When I need a doctor, I see one of their docs.  A complete physical is free once a year. It takes about two hours and 30 seconds – two hours waiting and 30 seconds in which the doctor says “You’re breathing. That’s good. You’re blood pressure is high, if it gets higher we’ll put you on meds.”

That’s ok, or what passes for ok. As long as I don’t get sick I’m ok. That’s why my blood pressure is high. I’m worried about getting sick. Or losing my job. Or losing my job and getting sick. In that case I’ll lose my house.

One thing I don’t worry about is that my father. He’s well over 80, and he has good health, and good health care. He’s on Medicare. It’s great. Efficient.  Government run. Not sexy like the Apollo Mission to the moon, but very important. And for the health care that my kids teachers get. They go to public school. The teachers are in the unions. And the health care is good. The kids too get good health care. My kids, my kids friends, even if their parents work but don’t get health care, then, thanks to Presidents Clinton and Obama, and despite the efforts and vetos of President Bush, they get health care.

But one of the things that really gets me, the thing that makes my blood boil – which is why I’ll need blood pressure meds – is that close to 50 Million Americans – one out of six – have no health insurance. And it’s people between the age of 18 and 65. People who work, or would work, if they could find jobs.  This is wrong on many levels. It’s not just that I have friends in that position, and that I was in that situation – working hard, falling backwards, no health insurance – barely able to afford food. According to Paul Krugman, in the New York Times, “many of the protesters who don’t want “Government Run Health Care” are on Medicare.” While that’s almost funny, it’s also very sad.