| | The problem with American health care boils down to one essential: coercive state and federal government meddling that date back to the mid nineteenth century. The meddling started with state legislatures, which imposed liscensing restrictions on medical practitioners in response to lobbying by doctors. These medical practitioners sought political relief from competition, by imposing restrictions on homeopaths and other less orthodox, less politically aggressive competitors. Today, of course, the American Medical Association is a powerful state-sanctioned cartel, wielding the power to limit accredited medical schools for the purpose of holding down the number of MDs, thereby boosting their fee income way beyond what they could earn in a free market. The AMA also decrees which ideas will be included--or excluded--from the curriculum taught to medical students.
The FDA, which has unbridled powers to approve the "efficacious" drugs of its political clients, while prohibiting the "dangerous" drugs of companies that incur its displeasure, is the Star Chamber of Medical Inquisition. "Efficacious" drugs include AZT, patented by the politically influential "non-profit" British drug company Burroughs Welcome, which destroys the immune systems of naive and trusting patients. "Dangerous" drugs, include isoprinosine, a safe, inexpensive and effective immune booster sold in 83 foreign countries around the world, patented (as I recall) in the US by Newport Pharamceuticals, a company that some years ago incurred the displeasure of the FDA. Together with the AMA, the National Institutes of Health, and other coercive institutions, the FDA retards innovation, raises drug costs, and serves as Chief Enforcer of Received Medical Wisdom, punishing dissenters and grooming sychophants.
Medicare and Medicaid socialize the costs of medical treatment for countless millions, thereby guaranteeing that countless millions will seek medical care for all manner of ailments, ranging from hangnails, colds, and depression, to cancer and heart disease. Meanwhile, doctors are burdened by incessant demands of forms and bureacratic fee formulas, and continually threatened by legal sharks looking for a piece of the action. Such disincentives encourage the brightest and most productive to seek employment with Wall Street hedge funds, or get law degrees. In the face of restricted supply and inexorably rising demand, medical costs soar to the heavens.
The answer is to get rid of state and federal regulations that significantly hurt the productivity of the medical market place, while rewarding mindless conformity and obediance among medical scientists and practitioners. If we get Hillary-or-Obama-Care, or McCain's EZ Solution for Medical Pain, the results won't be pretty. The inevitable day when the speeding express train of out-of-control government spending hits the wall will arrive much sooner.
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