Gentire, il mio asino!!

Allora....this particular post will have nothing to do with Living In Italy, except as regards the difficulty and/or impossibility of managing one's health care from 5,000 miles and 9 time zones away...

I've elected to conduct an informal poll. Feel free to leave your vote and/or sympathy in the comments section.

Main question:

Assuming you are an American, has it been your experience that managed health care is somewhat of a misnomer? Has it been your experience that your health care is actually "managed"? (If you are not an American, congrats. The universe has looked upon you with favor.)

Follow-up questions:

Are there other terms you feel are more suitable for the nature of your health care? e.g. "mangled", "obliterated", "non-existent", "expensive on the level of highway robbery"?

Oh -- and the subject line. Cussing isn't really cussing if you do it in another language, right? (Then again, typing "ass" into Google translate may in fact return donkey and not the intended. Though I've never heard great shakes about the health care for donkeys either...)