The exchange between Pariah and Westley is a pretty good example of why anecdotal stories are essentially useless in defining an issue.

You have two people in similar circumstances who, despite that fact, had vastly different experiences with the system at hand. From an evidentiary, scientific and/or statistical standpoint that more or less renders their experiences meaningless in this debate.

In terms of my own experiences, they aren't any more dispositive than anyone else's anecdotal stories. However, to the extent that one might wonder about my own experiences with government-run health care, I would offer the following.

First off, it should be noted that I don't currently have government insurance. I'm retired from the government and, further, have always been covered by private insurance from my wife's employer.

However, even if I did have "government" insurance, such insurance (at least where I worked) was not-and never was-part of a government run program. It was simply a benefit of employment, like any other employer might offer...and offered through Blue Cross and Blue Shield and/or other private insurance programs. So, basically, that put me in the same boat as any private industry employee whose employer offered the program.

Conversely, at one point in my job with the government, I did work in an agency that investigated and prosecuted welfare fraud, including fraud in medicare, medicaid and other government-run healthcare programs. In that position I was able to observe how, at least based on what I saw, poorly run and mismanaged most government-run healthcare is. While such healthcare is necessary to provide a "safety net" I wouldn't want to see the rest of us have to submit to it, any more than I'd want the rest of us to have to buy groceries through "food stamps."

Again, that's simply my own personal experience, and no more valid than Pariah's, Westley's and/or BSAMS'. However, it does tend to confirm what I've read about government programs in general, cited at several points in the thread.