Just because it's "free" doesn’t mean it's actually there when you need it... Case in point, my mom waited almost two years for her brain tumor surgery. It was a similar type of cancer that Kennedy had but much less aggressive... Had it been the same type as his she’d have been out of luck as the waiting time would’ve been the same (according to her treating doctor)…

She lives within an hour or so of the hospital and managed to get in front of the line when a person ahead of her died just a day or so before his surgery was supposed to happen; they called my mom to fill his “waiting-line slot.” She's fine now but the pre-surgery testing and the waiting process was a horrible experience.

You’ll have many universal health care proponents here tell you how great it is but from my personal experience it really isn’t that great. My sister is an equivalent to a physician assistant in Norway and they seem to have some issues there too despite the record oil revenues…

I tried to put my mom on my health insurance here in the US but couldn’t do it without a SS number... That's what you get for trying it the legal way...

Oh, before someone says I made it all up – my mom lives just outside of Stockholm and the surgery was performed at Ersta Hospital. I posted a summary of our experiences here a while back in one of the universal health care threads…

My overall perspective on universal health care in Scandinavia - the doctors and the general quality of health care over there is top notch - the problem is to actually get through the bureaucratic layers of government “stallers,” “naysayers,” and other paper pushers... Our system here isn’t perfect either and should be improved BUT I sure don't want a European style universal health care here…