A recollection of health care

I thought I would record some of my experiences with "socialized medicine." I am going from memory and could have the exact chronology a little off, but the main point of each story is accurate even if its a little out of order.
Despite being blessed with a healthy family and good health myself, I was just thinking about some of my experiences with military medicine and insurance. From the top of my head:
Doctor refused to treat my ruptured acl in 1993 and almost ended my career before iit started - ended up with a world class surgeon and a good as new knee because I wouldn't accept their answer. The second surgeon didn't have to see me.
Had to pay for own x-rays because they were not pre-approved - I had pneumonia and bruised ribs from a training accident at a military school - I got so sick as I returned home I had to go in to be seen and tri-care's answer was to wait four days until everybody returned to work and be seen. I ended up getting most if not all of this expense refunded, but I am not sure if my gov't insurance paid or if the doctor who saw me paid it off.
Cammie was denied a referral (that she already had in hand) to an ophthalmologist when my son injured his eye despite the life, limb, or eyesight pre-approval claim. My son's eye was filled with blood and we were terrified my three year old was going to lose his eye or vision. They fought with my wife to get her to make an appointment weeks in the future with a military doctor - the military care provider agreed to see her earlier, but that was not the "board's" decision or the normal process. This happened while I was deployed.
We have to fight with the dental insurance every time the kids go - some unidentified person finds a reason not to pay for every filling and every visit despite the fact that we pay for that insurance and have full coverage. We have had to may about half of our bills out of pocket since we moved - we recovered one or two from the gov't run insurance company, but they owe us over $400 right now for fillings.
All of our success stories involve somebody going outside of the system to help us. Having close personal friends as doctors and physician's assistants is how we have received most of our care. So, I get a little fired up when people tell me how great this nationalized care is going to be. My wife and I have been looking forward to the day we can have ONE doctor and get out from under this inefficient and complex system and now its disappearing. The military system is imperfect, yet the population in the system is younger and healthier than the average population. Now, we are going to expand it to include a less healthy general population and expect it to work better. That's bull.
My wife and I decided our best health care plan is to not get sick.