I don’t know that much about Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, but he doesn’t sound like he lives in the real world.

At least when it comes to health care.

President Barack Obama earlier this month hosted a health reform session in which he said all opinions on how to solve the health-care crisis would be welcome.

The president has proposed a government-run health program.

That’s where he and Grassley part company. Grassley is concerned it will reduce competition.

Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chimed in, “That’s clearly going to be a big area of contention.”

Since when should competition have anything to do with health care? OK, you can shop for prescription drugs at the cheapest drug store.

But in practical terms, competition doesn’t exist.

Say you suddenly feel pain in your chest. You collapse. You are rushed not to the hospital affording the best rates. You go to the hospital that’s the closest.

And while you are lying there, connected to all sorts of machines, you don’t ask how much it is costing. You are worried for your life.

It is doubtful you will pick up your cell phone and call other area hospitals, asking what their prices are for hooking you up to similar machines.

Chances are, the doctors and nurses who care for you have no clue what the cost is anyway.

Consider if the emergency room doctor says you need an EKG or MRI or some other part of the alphabet, would you ask how much it would cost? Would you call other hospitals?

Not likely and again, would you get a straight answer?

When you need to see a doctor, do you go searching for the cheapest one, or do you go to the doctor you have seen for the past several years?

That’s one reason treating health care as a profit-making, competitive business is so ridiculous, why it is a failure, why it results in people in the United States getting the poorest health care while spending more money. It just doesn’t work.

Rattle them sabers. Call it socialism. Listen to all of the tired talk show hosts.

The U.S. has the costliest system, spending $2.4 trillion a year, but leaving 48 million uninsured and many others under insured.

People live and die in this country based on insurance decisions correlated to profit margins.

How many in this country lose their homes and savings because they have the unfortunate experience of contracting a serious disease?

Take Mikki Bort Machalinski, a 36-year-old Albion business owner. She is battling stage III B breast cancer. Machalinksi owns Mikki Bort’s Martial Arts School and T-Shirt Printing.

The former Conneaut resident is a sixth-degree black belt.

If she lived in any other industrialized nation all she would have to concentrate on is getting well. But not in the United States.

Her friends hosted an event for her at St. Lawrence Center in Erie a week ago. They had a Chinese auction, bake sale, a gun raffle (no kidding), a quilt raffle, music, food and games, with an admission fee. All to help pay her hospital bills.

It’s not like she doesn’t have insurance. She does. But her insurance won’t cover prescriptions and one of her medications costs $280. She must have both breasts removed, but insurance will cover only one breast.

This certainly isn’t the lone instance.

How many have been turned down for care because:

n It is an experimental procedure

n It is a pre-existing condition

n Your insurance doesn’t cover that procedure or only pays so much for that procedure and your doctor / hospital charges more than that

n They didn’t get your paperwork

n You didn’t call the insurance company first to get permission. (Anyone seeing the film “Sicko” knows of the woman who was denied payment by her insurance company after she was in a bad accident and was unconscious during treatment and was denied coverage because she didn’t get on the phone to her insurance company before treatment started.)

Those advocating the status quo argue you won’t be able to go to the doctor or hospital of your choice under a government program.

Ask anyone insured under a Health Maintenance Organization who must abandon his or her family physician in favor of a doctor on the HMO list. I know of people who had to abandon their dentists in Ashtabula County to patronize those in western Lake County, thanks to HMOs.

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin lamented that with the way government works, we sure don’t want it involved in our health care. How can it get worse?

We let the government educate our kids. Through the government-based post office, you can still mail a letter to Hawaii for less than 50 cents and it will get there in a couple of days. Why wouldn’t health-care work? Government handles Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.

What about the cost? Gasp! Raise our federal taxes to pay for it. We will save because hospitalization won’t be taken out of our paychecks.

I bet the people who earn $7.45 an hour at RTS Cos. in Austinburg Township but pays $188 every two weeks for health-care would welcome the change.

The wealthy health-care industry certainly won’t want the changes and will use all of its lobbyists and big guns to keep it the way it is. You will hear the doom and gloom if we change.

The fact it works elsewhere doesn’t seem to enter the situation.

Our health-care system is sick. With all of our other troubles, we need to make it well. Hook it up to an EKG and let’s see what we get.

Lebzelter is special sections editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com.