The stories of all the nominees at Saturday night’s SAMMI awards were full of heart, courage, commitment, generosity, and vision.

But even in this excellent company, the story of Matt Larsen is a remarkable one. Most of us, at 16, are concerned with more petty things than taking on the financial responsibility of caring for an ill parent.

It is an amazing sacrifice, and after talking with him its obvious he’s a pretty amazing young man.

After being inspired by his selflessness, the next emotion I felt was frustration, and the presence of injustice. When a 16 year old boy has to leave school to financially help his father survive a stroke, there is something wrong with the system.

Republicans can say one thing, and Democrats can say other; people are free to have whatever thoughts they want about the free market, self determination, fears about the poor or the sick or the disabled sucking their tax dollars, and I have heard some self-righteous notions, but there can be no sane argument that this is the product of an intelligent, functioning system.

Around the world, developed nations refer to the disastrous health care system as a defining characteristic of America. To other countries it says that America doesn’t care much for its elderly, its poor, or its pregnant women for that matter, to name just three of the groups who suffer greatly under a medical system rotten with inefficiency.

Like the banking system before it, we are starting to see clearly that trusting private companies to “do the right thing” by people, when there are profits to be had, is naive, bordering on delusional.

Health care costs in the U.S. are high, and continue to rise.

The increase in the cost of health care domestically outpaces any other country in the world, and despite the fact that the U.S. spends more than any other country on health care, the quality of the care it receives in comparison is poor, disproving the traditional consumerist notion that the more money one spends on something the better quality it is.

The enormous amount of money the U.S. spends on health care, about 16 percent of its GDP, has been spent in a system based on excessive cost and inefficient, uncoordinated, highly fragmented, and variable care.

Yes, in 2009 this is not a new thought.

The president has made reconstructing the health care system one of his most public goals, and so now, everyone is talking about it.

But this has been a long time coming, largely because the drug companies and hospitals that profit had no interest in biting the hand that was feeding it.

Now, however, the rotten smell emanating from the public health system has gotten too bad to waft away and ignore, and doctors and other medical professionals are coming out in droves to say things have got to change.

I can sympathize with Matt.

A few years ago I quit my job, moved states, to look after my mother after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

No treatment was denied her, and despite having no extra medical insurance but that which all Australians have as a birthright, she was visited by some of the best doctors in the world, and received chemotherapy treatments when she needed them.

In comparison, my wife’s Mom, who at age 70 still works 8 to 5, 5 days a week, has been unable to receive treatment for debilitating Hepatitis C, because insurance companies have decided it was a pre-existing condition.

There is a reason why insurance companies have the reputation they do.

Unfortunately, my Mum wasn’t able to beat her cancer.

But I know what Matt is talking about when he talks of “letting families be families.”

For the last few months of her life, I was able to use both my hands just to hold on to hers. I didn’t have to drag them away to count pennies or fight the red tape.

There is no reason why it need be different here.