For 15 years I ran my own business and purchased health insurance. It was expensive, but with health costs the leading cause of bankruptcies in America I knew that without it my family was only one serious illness away from financial disaster.

During that time my wife, Barbara, the boys and I stayed pretty healthy; however, one thing stands out. We never submitted a significant claim to our insurance company that was paid the first time we sent it in. Barbara's relentless follow up eventually got us our money.

In 2000 I went to work for a local company and became eligible for their health insurance plan. In 2005, at the age of 51 Barbara collapsed from sudden cardiac arrest. That night at the hospital the cardiologist referred to Barbara's condition as sudden cardiac death and said that some patients would return partial brain function, but that survival was unlikely.

The bills piled up. I tried to follow the costs but it was impossible. There were hundreds of pages of invoices. After 28 days in the hospital the total was around $150,000. Our costs were $4,000. This time the insurer came through.

Barbara survived and except for occasionally forgetting where she puts her reading glasses, she's fine. She's also uninsurable, forever. If you get sick in America no one will insure you. Because I work for a company with an employee health plan she is covered under open enrollment. Otherwise, we would be completely on our own.

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Health care in America is a mess and it's time to start over. Congress is pretending to address this, but here's where the lobbyists earn their fees. Enormous campaign contributions insure that each faction of the health care industry has a cadre of loyal congressmen who will insure their interests. The result will be more chaos.

There is a fundamental conflict of interest in the industry. Essentially everyone is motivated by profit as well as the well being of the patient. Anytime you put anyone into a conflict of interest, the dollar always wins. Doctors are much less conflicted by this. Most of us know our doctors well. We know their training, their workloads, their compassion and their devotion to us. How do they feel about the current system? Most of them hate it.

The insurance companies and litigators have far too much influence on the health care industry and they often dictate treatment. Doctors are buried by paper work to satisfy the insurance companies and company executives are motivated by huge bonuses at the end of the year.

It's time to turn the medical profession back over to the doctors. The government must step in, eliminate health insurance companies and create the single payer system, one government-owned insurer that has no bottom line, no conflict of interest, but responds only to the needs of doctors and their patients. The single payer system doesn't tell the doctors what to do; the doctors dictate the system. Americans will save trillions of dollars in wasted costs, paperwork, redundancy and corporate profits.

Congress says it isn't possible. We have the highest health costs in the world and the worst health care system in the western world. Does this make sense to you? Ask your doctor. Then talk to friends. Our only hope for change is from the bottom up.

The night of Barbara's heart attack one of my son's asked, "Where did this come from?" I told him, "There's nothing unique about this situation. It's just that it's happening to us now."

Some day, something similar will happen to you.

Brian K. Jones is a consulting geologist, farmer and freelance writer. He and Barbara live in Sandy.