I was born and raised with socialized medicine.

During the time my parents were raising five children on a shoestring budget, we kids shared rooms, shared clothes, shared toys, and no one could stretch a food dollar farther than my mom. But, by golly, we never lacked health care. Regular checkups at the doctor, regular dental visits, and whenever one of us rambunctious sports-obsessed kids broke a bone or required emergency care or hospitalization, we got it. My parents never worried about paying the medical bills. Heck, they never even SAW a medical bill.

Our family enjoyed full dental and medical benefits, courtesy of the US government.

Where did this wonder of socialized medicine occur? Right here in the US of A. I was a military brat.

Recently I was talking to a friend about an emergency surgery and hospital stay. When she told me how much it cost her, I was shocked.

"I thought you had health insurance!" I exclaimed.

"We do," she replied.

But even someone paying for health insurance can still face financial catastrophe, when illness or accident strike.

I have a better understanding of what my coworkers used to say, during the year I lived and worked in Canada: "How can you Americans live like that? Never knowing when the day will come that an accident or medical diagnosis could ruin your life financially?"

My Canadian coworkers were full of sympathy for us poor Americans, held hostage as we are by a bloated, arrogant, anti-competitive insurance industry.

Across America today, rude mobs are disrupting town halls, making intelligent dialogue impossible, screaming "We don't want socialized medicine!" They have been whipped into this hysteria by deliberate misinformation and outright lies, a millions-of-dollars-a-day campaign of deception financed by the insurance industry.

Insurance companies do not want Americans to have a choice. ANY choice will result in less profit for the Insurance Industry. ANY competition will challenge insurers to lower their own rates and provide better service (Heaven forbid!)

Even scarier for the insurance industry, if the public option is implemented and it proves to be successful … Well, you can see how much the insurance industry could lose. They may have to get real jobs. Instead of continuing their present status as parasitic bloodsuckers who devour one-third of all health care dollars spent in America, while providing nothing in the way of actual, useful, necessary services.

The insurance industry has held Americans financially hostage for too long. Don't believe the lies and deception campaign designed to derail what is best for Americans.

The insurance industry is spending obscenely huge amounts of money to defeat real health care reform. And not because they have OUR best interests at heart.

Deb Baumann lives in Upper Lake.