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Categories - Copywriting - Shopping - Free Online Business Help - Telecommunications Services Articles: Health - The Government Destroyed Health Care The government is not supposed to and should not be attempting to run health care. Government intervention is what has destroyed health care in this country.
Even though health care associated legislation was passed prior to 1850, that was the year that the AMA was formed by a few doctors who were concerned about the growing number of doctors and the competitive effect that it was having on their prices. The AMA convinced Congress, through lobbying and campaign donations, to give it the authority to govern medical schools. By 1900, the AMA had reduced the number of medical schools from 140 to 70. Costs for medical schools went up and, as the population grew, the number of doctors per capita was reduced allowing doctors to charge more for their services. Medical students who are not members of wealthy families now, typically, face paying off $250,000 in loans when they get out of school which is more than most of the world’s population makes in its lifetime. Since you can't run hospitals without doctors, the number of treatment centers per capita was also reduced and their prices went up. Seeing the AMA's success, the rest of the health care industry got involved resulting in government limited numbers of insurance companies, treatments, treatment centers, medications, nurses, innovation, and doctors that have caused prices to shoot up to their current unaffordable levels due to the lack of competition. There is not one area of health care that is not already controlled by the government.
As the government induced prices rose, we discovered that the elderly and poor could no longer afford health care and the government got involved again with Medicare and Medicaid. Now we are faced with the fact that we can't afford Medicare or Medicaid even at the reduced prices that the programs pay which are increasingly becoming the realm of immigrant doctors who have varying ideas about how people should be treated influenced by their political backgrounds. As feared with the current legislation as a result of statements by various political figures, pills are often prescribed instead of operations that would eliminate illnesses and the cost of the pills is often outside of what various insurance programs pay for placing a hardship on a population that has trouble coming up with an extra $10 let alone a $1,000 to pay for medication.
Now, the government wants to take this same number of limited resources and provide treatment for up to 50 million more people. Resources will be further stretched and, even in this version of a government controlled free market economy, prices will rise. Availability and quality will drop like a rock. The difference will be that we all have to pay and since we have to pay, we will not pass on doctor visits for runny noses, sore fingers, plugged up ears, and ingrown hairs. The demand on available resources will be increased further making things worse and worse.
If the government had not gotten involved on behalf of these special interests, health care would still be affordable, we would not need Medicare or Medicaid and doctors, picked from a dedicated segment of the population who's primary interest would be to save and serve as opposed to making money would be in the business of saving patients rather than serving HMOs. Their ability to succeed would be based on the quality and price of their service.
The only way to fix health care is for the government to back out of it and remove controls that limit the competition. If it just can't keep its hands off, it could begin by funding more medical schools and paying for doctors to attend them. In about 12 years, we will begin to see the problem reverse its self.
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