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By Harry
Browne
The president and Congress are debating
a "Patient's Bill of Rights," arguing over how
to force Health Maintenance Organizations to treat their
customers nicely.
No one in the hallowed halls of the
Capitol bothers to wonder how it is that HMOs are able to
abuse their customers without losing business to competitors.
After all, no one has to force IBM, Dell, Compaq, or any
other computer-maker to treat its customers nicely. If someone
doesn't like a computer company, he simply does business
with someone else.
So no one is pushing for a "Bill
of Rights" to protect customers against computer companies
-- or against doctors, druggists, barbers, or gardeners.
So how did
HMOs become so powerful and dictatorial that their customers
need protection?
Back in 1973 Congress passed the HMO
Act -- which imposed regulations and tax rules
that caused most large
companies to use HMOs for their employee health
plans.
The Act was finally repealed
in 1995, but by then government
regulation had given HMOs the overwhelming, noncompetitive
power they wield today.
So why are Republicans and Democrats
arguing over ways to push government even further into health
care? Why aren't they talking about real health-care reform?
Why aren't the politicians trying to create a heath-care
system in which:
-
Low-cost health
insurance is available to virtually everyone -- including
people with existing medical problems;
-
Doctors have the
time to understand your problems and know you personally
-- and even make house calls;
-
A hospital stay
costs only a few days' pay, rather than many months of
your income;
-
Charity hospitals
are available to take care of families that can't afford
the low-cost hospitals; and
-
Free clinics take
care of the everyday medical problems of people too poor
to afford regular doctors.
Does this
sound too good to be true?
Does it sound like Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy,
or George Bush on the campaign stump -- making promises
you know will never come true?
Actually, the health-care system I've
described is the one we had in America until the mid-1960s.
It was then that the federal government moved in -- with
Medicare, Medicaid, the HMO Act, and tens of thousands of
regulations on doctors, hospitals, and health-insurance
companies. That's when health care started going downhill.
In area after area, we've seen the result
that follows the statement "I'm from the government
and I'm here to help you." The government invariably
makes things worse. In the case of health care, the government's
mischief is life-threatening.
To this we've come:
Today half
of all health-care dollars are spent by government.
A large part of the rest of the health-care
money is controlled by private companies to whom the government
has granted favored status.
And who -- other than the bureaucrats
-- is better off for all the government has done?
If you're a senior citizen, has Medicare
improved your life? Unfortunately, it's more likely to be
the opposite:
-
You probably pay
more than twice as much from your own pocket for health
care as you would have before Medicare -- even after allowing
for inflation.
-
Government-subsidized
health care has led to rationing, causing Medicare to
reject roughly 20 percent of all the procedures physicians
decide are needed.
-
When Medicare denies
a procedure you need, you're forbidden to pay the doctor
directly for it. You must go without.
- There are over 100,000 pages of
Medicare regulations -- and ignorance of the law can lead
to fines or imprisonment for you or your doctor.
Comparison
Some people say health care is more
expensive and complicated because of so many new lifesaving
technologies. But that claim turns reality upside down.
Computers have become more and more
useful while becoming much less expensive. In 1993 I bought
a new hard disk for my computer. It could store a single
gigabyte of information (roughly one billion characters)
and it cost me $1,000. Today I can buy a faster disk that
stores 20 gigabytes for only $100 -- or $5 per gigabyte,
only one-half of 1 percent of the cost eight years ago.
Why is the
computer industry so much more efficient and so much less
expensive?
Because it's the freest industry in
America. As yet there is no Department of Computers in Washington,
and no Federal Software Agency to make every new computer
program jump through years of bureaucratic hoops before
you can use it to improve your life.
Real reform
The computer industry demonstrates the
blessings that freedom can provide. If any politician in
Washington really cared about your health care, he wouldn't
be debating how the federal government should impose its
way on HMOs. He'd be pushing to get the government completely
out of health care -- and restore the best health-care system
in history.
Any politician who doesn't propose that
kind of reform doesn't really believe in freedom, in limited
government, or in a strict construction of the Constitution
-- no matter what he says when he's campaigning.
Harry Browne was the 2000 Libertarian
presidential candidate. More of his articles can be read
at HarryBrowne.org, and his books are available at HBBooks.com.
WorldNetDaily
Exclusive Commentary March 26, 2001
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