Market speak timeDoctors have a monopoly on health care. You can't get necessary treatment, or prescription drugs or surgeries without going to see one. Like all monopolies doctors require heavy duty regulation to ensure that the public is protected. So the debate isn't one of "socialism versus free market." Its more like "regulation of monopoly versus not regulating a monopoly."
I wouldn't red bait the issue by calling socialism. It is necessary regulation of a monopolized industry that is required and one of the easiest ways to regulate doctors would be through a single payer system like national health care.
The Party of No and their lack of free market solutionsThe conservatives are not offering any solutions to the health care problem. Their do nothing approach is just a lack of will on their part to regulate the health care monopoly. Solutions like medicare prescription drug plans and tax breaks for people to afford health insurance is not a solution but is in fact merely a path to funnel tax money into the pockets of these monopolies. I would like to hear them talk about about some real "free market" solutions.
Real Free Market SolutionsA free market solution would be to break the hold that doctors monopoly that they have on health care by making some prescription drugs available without a prescription and all others available with a consult with a pharmacist. Surgeries could be preformed by skilled people not necessarily doctors, I believe that the army did this during WW II where people who were non doctors were trained to do just appendix operations.
Nurses can surely diagnose a cold/flu, order appropriate tests and tell a patient to see a pharmacist for antibiotics... you really don't need 7 years of training and medical degree that guarantees you admittance to the monopoly.
Pharmaceutical patents could be shortened to 5 or 10 years and patent extensions could be banned as well as banning the payments to stop generics coming to market.
I'm sure that there are other things that would be free market solutions but so far the answer to the health care issue from the other side has been "No, you're a GD socialist." I wish that the "conservatives" would seek to offer some real free market solutions instead of just trying to keep people tied to this health care monopoly that is a cash cow for their supporters. They have pretty much made it clear that they don't want the health care industry regulated, and that brings us to the whole financial crash brought to you by the whole "don't regulate me bro" crowd. Until the party of NO puts some solutions on the table, they can STFU, because what's there now has crashed and the need for regulation is obvious.
EDIT BTW the list of problems on the link in the OP with the UK system would be many times greater for the US if you take into account the stories of the 40 million people in the US without health insurance. Talk about rationing health care LOLZ when you are uninsured and can't see a doctor, I would call that "a line of infinite length" or "an infinitely long wait time" because youi never get to see a doctor.
Last edited by Diesel_dyk (2009-04-30 22:21:00)
