Another great article. This comes out of an organization funded by our tax dollars whose agenda and mission have been celebrated by none other than our own Hillary Clinton. Basically the article says that health care costs too much in the United States and that unless you need really specialized care (at which we are apparently very good if not the best) you are better off living in a different country.
The authors, like many others, are confusing costs with charges. No one knows what health care costs in the United States. No one knows what it costs anywhere–what it should cost, anyway. We know what a gallon of milk should cost when we go to the store. If we’re not sure, all we have to do is go down the street to the competitor’s store and see what it costs there. Comparison shopping for health care costs is simply not available here or anywhere. The only way to keep the “cost” down according to bureaucrats like the authors writing this article is to have some very smart people on committees deciding who gets care and who doesn’t. Rationing and price controls. That is all that bankrupt governments know when it comes to stuff like this. Go to one of the countries that the authors are holding up as examples of “how to do it right” and find your place in line. Get your care in the U.S. and prepare to be fleeced by the hospital administrator. Another Morton’s fork!
How about letting the market work? How about a model like that which governs plastic surgery and Lasik surgery? Low costs, high quality. Think that is where the authors of the article end up at the end of the article for their recommendation? Think again. “Pearson (one of the authors) said one reason prices are higher in the United States is that the healthcare system lacks what other countries have: an effective government mechanism that acts to keep prices down.” Ouch. Price controls. Shortages. Less spent on health care. The majic formula revealed.
Let me see…get control of the health care system and reduce the price paid to a physician for the performance of a total hip replacement so low he doesn’t want to do them. Less total hip surgeries are done. Less money is spent on total hip surgeries. Money is saved. Government works, doesn’t it? Well, unless you need a total hip surgery!
Don’t think they’ll try that here in the U.S. once the new health care law has bankrupted us, do you? Think again.
G. Keith Smith, M.D.
