If there's one thing I don't do often enough anymore, it's just getting out there and talking to average folks.

Today I took my wife to the doctor's office in Atlanta, and while we were waiting for her appointment, I found myself talking to two other people about health care. I would estimate that each of them was no better off than middle class, and might probably have been lower middle class. One was a middle-aged woman who had undergone four different spinal fusions and the other was a young man who was out of pocket $300 a month for pain control medication.

<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/world-accordign-to-USA.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1204" title="world-accordign-to-USA" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/world-accordign-to-USA-300x192.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="192" /></a>Neither has health insurance.

Both are Georgia voters, the type who at first glance might be fans of Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin, but not so surprisingly, neither of them thinks America has the "best health care system in the world."

My wife and I are spending about $1,000 a month on health care, the bulk of that for really good health insurance. We're actually very fortunate in that we have a back-up plan as well; if anything ever goes wrong with our insurance here, we also have coverage in France.

France has the system that has been rated as the world's best, and Americans might be surprised to learn that it's actually a mixture of public and private coverages. Government insurance covers 70 percent of the cost, while people can buy supplemental (private) coverage for 20 percent of the cost. That leaves people paying no more than 10 percent of their costs.

Both of the people I discussed things with today said they thought we would be much better off with a system like Canada has, and both seemed to understand that most of the negatives they have been hearing on radio and television about so-called "socialized" medicine were politically motivated.

My only question when it comes to insurance is why something that people really have to have should be governed by the profit motive.

I've never heard a good answer to that one.

I doubt I ever will.