Ouch.

[madmick]

The Solution

The Solution
1. What is the solution? The solution is not more government taxes, plans and regulations. More bureaucracy will neither improve health care nor lower costs. We need to eliminate stifling bureaucracy, increase control over our own health care, and create new and innovative health-care choices. Here are some alternatives:

Privatize Health Care. The health benefits we receive from government are paid for by our tax dollars. Under the present system, government decides how much of our money to spend on health care, consumes over half of those funds on bureaucratic overhead, and then controls what health services the remaining half of our own money may be spent on! This system is not only coercive, but uneconomical as well.

2. Freedom of choice in health care can be increased for the needy by replacing Medicaid and Medicare with health-care vouchers, and by making all medical expenses (including medical insurance) tax-deductible (at state-dictated rates) there is no incentive for anyone -- from patients, to doctors, to hospitals -- to exercise restraint in consumption of medical resources. Because patients don't pay directly out of their own pockets, few ever ask how much a medical procedure may cost or if there is a less-expensive alternative. Similarly doctors and hospitals have little incentive to comparison-shop or economize.

3. Government Interference In Health Care. Contrary to popular opinion, we do not have ad be limited -- just so long as patients are fully informed of the risks and benefits of drugs. Patients and their doctors -- not government bureaucrats, should decide which drugs to use.
End Medical Monopolies. The American Medical Association is a coercive monopoly which makes it difficult or impossible for alternative providers, such as nurse-practitioners, chiropractors and nutritionists, to market their services. Legal restrictions denying consumers their choice of practitioners and therapies should be repealed.

4. Teach Healthy Life-Styles and Prevention. For many, disease prevention and a healthy life-style is the best therapy. By improving diet and fitness, and decreasing known carcinogens -- such as alcohol, tobacco, and fat -- we can improve our health without ever-more expensive treatment. Today the number one cause of death is cardiovascular disease, which is largely preventable through diet and fitness. Yet only 34 out of 100 medical schools give even a semester-long course in nutrition.

5. Encourage and Expand Charitable Care for the Poor. When doctors are spending 10 to 20 hours a week filling out forms and reports required by Medicare, Medicaid, the FDA and other state and federal agencies, they have little time left to help the poor. Eliminating medical monopolies and reducing unnecessary government regulations would greatly increase the number of health-care providers. Case loads and costs would decrease, and the quality and variety of services would increase. Enormous health care resources would become available to help the poor.

Now, if we could just start shooting the useless politicians to get moving in the right direction.