How many people in the United States really know the facts regarding the mess health care is in?

How many know how it got in such bad shape?

Much of it extends back to the mid-1960s, when Democrats swept both chambers on Capitol Hill and President Lyndon Johnson rammed through Medicare, taking on not only the Republicans but many members of his own party.

His efforts were successful, partially because of the force of LBJ’s personality and his way of strong-arming and cajoling others. And when Medicare was implemented in July 1966, doctors and hospitals across the nation screamed that the death of medicine was at hand.

Conversely, the Golden Age of Medicine became reality.

Health care providers quickly discovered no restrictions on cost, only on eligibility. Patients were overtreated, hospital stays extended and unrestricted fees charged, much to the amazement of doctors and hospitals.

You can guess what followed. Hospital facilities were expanded to accommodate an ever-growing number of patients. Gross abuses occurred as doctors played ping-pong with patients, treating old folks’ multiple ailments as the number of hospital beds multiplied.

For two decades or so this golden age prospered at the expense of the taxpaying public. As unrestricted fees were charged for Medicare, the same or higher fees were charged the insurance companies, with premiums rising accordingly.

Finally, in the 1980s, the government changed the rules, but the measures came too late. Those golden years had created monsters still hungry that demanded feeding. Doctors objected to being restricted on fees.

In order to restrict costs, managed care and other vehicles were instituted. In time hospitals shrank and doctors’ income declined. And yet, medical costs remained uncontrollable.

Which is where we are today. Despite some reforms, financial worries revolving around health care continue to mount.

And remember where it started. Government rushing thoughtlessly into health care, regardless of need and irrespective of cost.

Americans shouldn’t be forced into another reckless health care plan without wise planning and careful thought. And yet, that’s where we are. The White House imposed an August deadline for lawmakers to craft health care reform, even as some of the president’s allies protested this was too much, too quick.

Now, with that deadline busted, the president and congressional leaders are talking about passing health care reform sometime next month, when senators and representatives return from August recess.

There’s a smarter way to do all this.

I readily concede our health care system has plenty of problems, including rising costs. But to remedy problems, the Obama administration should enlist the wisest bipartisan group in the nation to devise any plan of such magnitude.

And that means rising above the various constituent groups, including lawyers.

The worst thing our leaders could do is rush helter-skelter into one of our most prized possessions — health care for America.

Our health care system wasn’t broken overnight — and to fix it adequately and forestall rising costs will take input from a wide variety of folks from very different perspectives.

The dangers in failing to pursue this course are obvious. Practically every government program is projected to eventually become insolvent.

In some cases, they’re already dead, just not buried.

If more wisdom and planning initially had been exercised, perhaps crisis could have been prevented and America would not be the richest debtor nation in the world.

One only hopes that we don’t make the situation worse and leave both our economy and our people in a far more weakened state than they already are.

Clifton Robinson is chairman of Robinson Media Co., which owns the Tribune-Herald.