In The Future . . .

Everyone will have access to free health care. No one will pay a dime out of pocket. All their needs will be addressed completely by a taxpayer funded system. Everyone will have coverage, regardless of their needs or existing health condition.

If you want to look at what a "free" health care system in the U.S. looks like, here is what you might find.

The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken.

Gowns & wheelchairs. These are low tech. Makes you wonder what it will be like for state of the art.

Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in

Neglect & substandard care? Is this some third world medical center?

No, it is supposed to be the pinnacle of care for our most precious resources. The soldiers of the Armed Forces.

The mold, mice and rot of Walter Reed's Building 18 compose a familiar scenario for many soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan who were shipped to their home posts for treatment. Nearly 4,000 outpatients are currently in the military's Medical Holding or Medical Holdover companies, which oversee the wounded. Soldiers and veterans report bureaucratic disarray similar to Walter Reed's: indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations.

Unsanitary conditions. Bureaucratic disarray. Long waits.



Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.

Is this the future of "free" health care?

If so, I don't want any part of it.