One of the most important issues this election year concerns health care. Whether it's adopting universal health care or sticking with the old private system, reform needs to happen. At one time I would have weighed in on the debate with a skeptical attitude if not against universal health care, but after experiencing adult life and seeing family and peers suffer from needing health care and not being able to afford it, I have come to the conclusion that some sort of  public system is needed. 

Every weekend my grandfather drives down the street to a gas station where he works the grave  yard shift. This particular job entails a bit of challenge for him being attached to an oxygen tank for a continuous supply. He does this not for himself being covered by the VA, but for his wife whose state health insurance for a time didn't cover all of her medication costs. Though he may need to work for other expenses, the cost of health care was a main priority before Medicare Part D. I think a universal health care system would allow for him more freedom and possibly allow him to retire with social security. The capitalist system turns a needed medical service into a high cost commodity where people are nickle and dimed to death.

More recently my wife had become ill with a severe pneumonia. She spent twelve days in the hospital and was sent home with an array of medication with oxygen. Now she walks around the community with a tank(only temporarily). However, in her situation she was covered under state health insurance. The state coverage comes from the federal program that gives money to states for public health care mostly for children. But Minnesota has a larger program that sometimes covers adults past 25 years of age(the imposed deadline for the federal program).