I injured my right middle finger last week playing pick-up football. Although the Irish have an aversion to medical treatment trumped only by Christian Scientists, by the next morning, my finger had turned from white to purplish blue, so either a) my finger was actually a cold-activated Coors Light can, or b) it was time to suck it up and go to the Emergency Room at the Ohio State Medical Center.

With all the horror stories I’ve heard about health care in the U.S., I was pleasantly surprised by my visit to the ER. I was a first-time patient — something of an accomplishment for a senior — but I had my insurance and other paperwork processed within half an hour.

After an episode of Seinfeld in the fairly crowded waiting room, a doctor led me back for treatment. Within an hour, I was x-rayed, diagnosed (“distal phalanx fracture, finger, closed”), splinted, bandaged, and dismissed, with papers that contained a detailed explanation of my injury, instructions for caring for the finger, and contact info for a hand specialist, with whom I was to make a follow-up appointment.

So why should you care? Because with all of the ruckus about the failures of our medical system, it is important to remember that it works very well for most people and most maladies.

I realize that I was fortunate. I had a broken finger, not a destructive disease like cancer. My injury has required no hospital stay and no physical therapy aside from a cold beer in my hand while I watch TV every night (to reduce the swelling, obviously).

I also have insurance, which is more than 30 million Americans (depending on who and how you count) can say. Without it, maybe my ER experience would have been different. Maybe I would have foregone the ER in favor of repeated visits to Dr. Sam Adams.

In any case, at no point during my visit did I think that the health care system needed a major overhaul. While I waited, I never once thought, “If only government bureaucrats were involved in this process!” The average ER wait time in the US in 2008 was four hours, with Utah (6.8 hours) at the high end of the spectrum. In Canada, which has taxpayer-funded, government-run universal health care, average ER wait time in 2009 was 23.5 hours. I was in and out in two hours.

(If you want to read a fun report, check out the Wait Time Alliance’s 2009 Report Card. My favorite part of Canadian health care? Median wait time to treatment for the symptom “bright red rectal bleeding” is only 57 days!)

To be sure, there is room for improvement in the medical system. But whatever we do, we need to make sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. What are the odds that more government involvement in health care adds enough bath water to drown the baby?