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If we can get the government out of health care, prices will drop, care will get better, we will have more doctors, and your health care provider will have to compete for your business

Why The Health Care Mess?



Yes, our politicians say they are diligently working to solve our health care crisis, but are they a major cause of our health care crisis? The health care mess started in the mid 1960s when Medicare and Medicaid were adopted. At the same time, doctors started having to go through expensive licensing procedures beyond medical school. This increased their expenses and limited the amount of doctors entering the pool which reduced the quantity. Supply goes down, price goes up.
Medicare and Medicaid made the lower income folks less dependent on private charities and more dependent on political institutions and pharmaceutical companies. Politicians like it because more dependent voters means more votes. The health care industry likes it because the average insured never needs to ask what a procedure costs. Try asking a doctor what a treatment will cost. What you will get is a blank stare...partly because the charges are determined by the rate schedule that was negotiated with the insurance company. Doctors can have a dozen rate schedules. It gets so complicated it requires bean counters and insurance experts to sort it all out...expensive. So expensive, that a study was conducted in California to see what an MRI would cost if paid in cash. Some hospitals, with insurance, were charging $6,000, some $4,500. With cash, the cost went down to about $1,000. One hospital said they would take $250 if paid in cash. A pet peeve of mine is the continual pharmaceutical advertising on TV and radio, an investment of billions of dollars by the drug companies. Am I supposed to suggest a prescription to my doctor? Or, am I supposed to turn into a hypochondriac, running to the doctor for every sneeze? These government programs require continual tax increases because they function to satisfy the health care industry rather than the patient. As a result, the system continually leads to more expensive and more wasteful treatments. To 'repay' the politicians for their 'generosity,' the health care institutions give back to the political machine in the form of donations. Obama received more than $20 million from the health care industry. As a result, prices continually rise, making it more and more difficult for the average person to afford the care. Lasik surgery is one of the few exceptions. Since the government is not involved to any great degree in lasik, the price of the procedure has dropped dramatically since its introduction. What government-controlled procedure has experienced that?

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In 1965, the government took over the training of new doctors and in 1997 they limited the number of new doctors to 110,000 per year. That number has not changed since...supply and demand. And today, 700,000 families go bankrupt due to health care costs in spite of insurance. Obamacare will not solve most of the problems with health care and has, in fact, made it worse. It limits or eliminates competition, thereby keeping prices high. All providers have to offer the same plans at the same price. The cost is no longer determined by the market, giving the health care industry the ability to charge more than the market would have allowed...like the $75 I was charged in an emergency room for 'miscellaneous' consisting of one alcohol wipe. No wonder there are so many people on blood pressure meds. To top it off, Obamacare was designed to fail so as to introduce a one-payer health care industry. That, of course, would give the government the power of life and death over its citizens. But, since the goals of Obamacare and the left have been thwarted due to the election of President Trump, we are now stuck in a sort of void, between two worlds. You see, President Trump wasn't let in on the dirty little secret...the Democrats always wanted a one-payer, totally government-controlled health care industry. Obamacare was devised as a sort of road to nowhere. If we can get the government out of health care, prices will drop, care will get better, we will have more doctors, and your health care provider will have to compete for your business. And that's an important point...in spite of what anyone says, health care is a business and businesses need happy customers.

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Ray DiLorenzo -- Bio and Archives

Ray DiLorenzo is a career pilot having retired after 22 years as a contract fire pilot with the California Department of Forestry (Cal-Fire).  He is presently affiliated with Stand Up America US Foundation founded by Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely (Ret).


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