With the campaign for the 2008 presidential election well underway, people are paying more attention to health care. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has received quite a bit of attention. Hes working to impose the first state-run health insurance system. Since your medical freedom is one of my top priorities, lets take a quick look at what would happen if his type of system became federal.
The Massachusetts system requires all state residents to pay up and join. According to the prestigious Cato Institute, the Feds can call any doctor they choose a criminal if he does not adhere to their 120,000 plus pages of regulations. And now the state of Massachusetts can do the same thing to any of its residents who do not pay into the state-run system.
The Cato response summed the problem up, saying: On a fundamental level, we must shift the health care debate away from its single-minded focus on expanding coverage to the bigger question of how to reduce costs and improve quality (emphasis added). That will require the introduction of market mechanisms to give consumers more control over and responsibility for their health care decisions.
See, the government often responds to problems by throwing money at them. But roping everyone into the system under pain of fines and imprisonment does nothing to address the cause of the crisis.
What most do not realize is that there is no real health care crisis in this country. That is because our system does not really focus on health. Instead, it focuses on profits. And curing disease is not nearly as profitable as treating symptoms. If you cure a disease, the patient does not need to come back. But if you treat the symptoms with a drug that causes other health problems, then the patient has to come back for more help.
My advice is to do everything you can to keep government from increasing control over your health care choices. Allowing it to lighten your pocket only reduces your options. You will have to pay into the system, but it wont pay for the healing work you need. And you will be left with little to take care of yourself.
And if you do not believe that the current system is corrupt and out of control, keep reading the next health note.
Ref: Cato Institute, April 5, 2006, Policy Analysis no. 565.