After winning big in New York state Hillary Rodham Clinton promised/warned

"Health care is coming back,"  adding, "It may be a bad dream for some."

As Americans write ever larger checks for health insurance premiums while paying more for non covered medical costs many find this idea rather attractive.

Not so fast!  Reading this horror story of the final days of a British cancer patient coping with the debt ridden, underfunded, medically lacking, rationed, delayed, bureaucratic, government run system should remind us of the nightmare that awaits us if even half of Senator Clinton's health care agenda passes.

It's eight months since I collapsed and was taken to hospital, where I was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer. Because of my age — 57 — I was told that very little could be done for me, and that I had up to six months left to live. I then discovered that because of the cash crisis in the NHS, treatment is rationed to those who are most likely to recover, and if you suffer from more than one form of cancer, you don't fall into that category.

Yeah, yeah there are probably those who could counter Ms. Balsom's tale with  equal horror stories about US health care. However is our system so pervasively bad as this?  I don't think so.

Ethel C. Fenig   11 17 06