Posted on 06/14/2004 10:53:13 PM PDT by Remember_Salamis
While some medical procedures (like elective cosmetic surgery) allow for informed consumer choice done at leisure, and hence for market solution to their delivery, other (majority) of medical needs are of more urgent nature and hence do not leave would-be patient with either sufficient time and/or with sufficiently unclouded judgment to make an informed consumer choice. Therefore the government will always muddle it.
Milton Friedman bump! (the man is a genius)
Amen, brother. My parents, in the 1950's paid $35 a month for medical coverage for a family of 5 and the doctor came to OUR HOUSE when we were sick.
MSA's are great, but Kennedy butchered the last version and only the self-employed can get the benefit.
thanks for posting this. I admire Milton's brain power. And this article has more than a few "I did not know that" moments..
My father is truly prescient! I remember him watching Ronald Reagan on TV in 1960 and commenting: "Why can't someone like Reagan run for President?"
In the 1970's, with the enactment of Medicare, my father's analysis was that the medical system was doomed to failure unless medical insurance was outlawed, except for disaster coverage. He pointed out that any system which has one party consuming while another party produces and a third party paying, does not contain the proper checks and balances to control pricing.
Friedman took this whole article to come to the same conclusion: "A cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes."
bump
Yeah, but to be fair, you got 1950s health care. Iron lungs they could provide. Stents and MRIs they couldn't. Health care has become more expensive in part because it's become more successful and sophisticated. Anybody else remember back when a heart attack was a death sentence? Now it's a less of an inconvenience than breaking your leg. I'm willing to pay for that.
I think if you read a little deeper into Friedman's analysis you'd find that our insurance payments are not generating medical advances.
This is the common point of view, but is it true? Other forms of technology, such as cell phone, computers, and digital cameras have decreased in price while the power and functionality has increased.
Read later...
Huge sums of money, that could be going to actual health care, are being paid to people who push paper around. Don't even get me started on the ethics of Doctors and nurses who work for insurance companies.
The Dems started this with the HMO; they realized it was a way to socialize medicine. We need to find another way...ASAP.
I'd love to see Milton Friedman nominated for Fed Chairman.
I'm particularly bothered by having to switch doctors every few years because your insurance changes, or you no longer have it, as we are temporarily experiencing. So much for building a relationship with your doctor...you're lucky if you see him or her once before it's time to switch providers again because your employer is changing to a different plan!
Then look into the new HSA's.
Last week I read that cancer patients are living longer from time of detection. That may mean that it was only detected earlier and that the treatment had no effect on longevity.
My grandmother is the only person I know that chose to have absolutely no treatment for her breast cancer. She lived seven years from the time she finally told someone about the lump in her breast.
I can tell you story after story. All these drugs create side effects which demand more drugs. I have no confidence in modern medicine, at all. Trauma medicine is necessary and effective. I do believe they've made progress.
Excellent ideas!
Thanks. Did a google search on HSA (had never heard of them) and it looks interesting. But I'd have to get my employer on board.
Notice that you mentioned products and I mentioned services. That's the difference. Cell phones and digital cameras are cheap because they're made in Malaysia.
That is utterly ridiculous. Depending on where you draw the line at "modern" medicine, ask yourself if you've seen any kids crippled by polio lately, or seen anybody in an iron lung. Ask yourself if you've ever heard of an angioplasty, or an ultrasound examination, or a CAT scan. Is it "overrated" that tearing your ACL no longer means that you're hobbled, or that a heart attack no longer means that you flat-out die, or that nobody seems to have died of the German measles lately?
It's a long logical leap from "they still can't sure cancer" to "modern medicine is overrated".
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