| Army, I don’t care for any of the options in your poll. I don’t think the system is fine as is. Now I’m a free market, less government kind of guy but there are some things that the government could be doing. Running health care isn’t one of them. I’ve have enough doctors making poor decisions without a government bureaucrat helping them.
The government could do something about stemming the flood of malpractice lawsuits that suck millions from the system and the cost gets passed on to the rest of us. You can’t get rid of those lawsuits completely because many are justified but many aren’t and we pay for it. I’ve seen surveys that say 9 out of 10 doctors practice defensive medicine like running extra tests to protect themselves.
Free market folks have complained about excessive lengths of trials for new drugs driving up costs and not saving lives by getting to the market sooner. Recently Pfizer had to withdraw a new cholesterol drug it was testing in the last year of the trial because of a high body count. Several drugs that had been approved later get recalled because things turn up after they were put on the market. So do we allow drug companies an unregulated environment to sell any concoction that they can stir up? On the other hand we can’t regulate the prices down either because it discourages new research.
I’m all for doctors and health care folks making plenty of money but there still has to be some oversight. Unfortunately it seems like a situation where if the government doesn’t do it then it won’t get done. |