As the Congress debates the merits of the Patients’ Bill of Rights, we are once again told to believe that the federal government can save us all from a problem they created in the first place. Although over 80% of HMO’s users report satisfaction with their service, the feds are all in a tizzy over the apparent "health care crisis" that we are all experiencing thanks to HMO’s.

According to the media accounts of what is wrong with American health care, HMO’s (or "managed care") are a terrible corporate demon foisted upon the American public over the will of benevolent government by a gang of profiteering faceless corporations committed to keeping the public feeble and in ill health in order to save themselves a few bucks on employee benefits.

The real story of HMO’s, of course, is one of considerable government meddling and regulation which ended in spiraling health costs which, not surprisingly, begat more government meddling and regulation.

HMO’s are part of the legacy of price and wage controls supported by "conservative" president Richard Nixon who supported them (among other ill-conceived reasons) as a means for controlling health care costs. The high costs of the early seventies were not produced by free market health care, but by the ever expanding government giveaways of Medicare and Medicaid which removed individuals from the process of making health care transactions and created a situation where third parties (i.e. government) were making the payments to health care providers. You can imagine that in a system where the consumer of health services is responsible for none of the costs, a little excess demand might result. And that was indeed the result. No longer restrained by paying for health care, patients ended up in the doctor’s office for every stubbed toe and every bloody nose resulting in spiraling health care costs due to such massively inflated demand.

Far from being free-market health care as Ted Kennedy would have you believe, managed care has always been a system of complex government regulation which favors large politically influential insurance companies over smaller more entrepreneurial insurance companies. To claim that there is anything even remotely resembling a competitive marketplace in health care is absolutely preposterous. In fact, the United States government controls over 45% of the health care industry in the United States. In Canada, home of socialized medicine, the number is 75%.

Now, the Congress is trying to tell us that we need more of their regulations to ensure that better quality care can be assured to all Americans. The biggest problem that people have with HMO’s is the control of expenditure by reviewing and managing doctor recommended treatment options that sometimes end in denial over physician recommendations. Can government solve this problem? The last time I checked, Canadians were waiting for months and even years to receive treatments that the government had decided against funding. In Britain, the non-government health care sector is exploding because so many Brits must go outside the government health services to receive treatment. (In the US, it is illegal for recipients of government health care to purchase private services from a Medicare/Medicaid doctor unless the doctor gives up all other patients for two years.)

To be sure, managed care systems have actually done a pretty good job of keeping down health care costs in the face of constant government attempts to increase those costs. Let’s not be so foolish, though, as to call HMO’s some kind of free-market solution. The rising costs and occasionally refused procedure at HMO’s exist because of government regulation. The problems are there because government has doggedly refused to let the marketplace work, and has put in its place a system which destroys the patient’s ability to control which services he wishes to receive and what kind of insurance and what level of insurance coverage (if any) he wishes to purchase. Thanks to massive government health programs, and government collusion with private companies who have purchased political clout, we have destroyed the healthcare marketplace and yet the private healthcare economy somehow manages to be posthumously responsible for all the woes that the Patient’s Bill of Rights claims to remedy. Even the proponents of the bill have to admit that the bill will do nothing to make health care more affordable. It will only further decrease consumer responsibility and further inflate demand and costs as health care providers are laid bare in court to face the wrath of consumers who don’t even pay for their care in the first place. Yet the Congress will fight ever harder because the bill gives the illusion of solving the problem. The Patient’s Bill of Rights is just more of what we have seen for the last thirty years, and no amount of government intervention can solve rising health care costs. The only solution is to put consumers back in control of their own health care purchases, end the government/corporate lobby-fest on Capitol Hill, and to resurrect the healthcare marketplace that was killed by government so long ago.

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

Excerpted from above
Perfectly true!
Less regulation and Government meddling is the way to go, IMO!

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If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

The Only problem I see with this man's writings is that HMO ect are starting to price themselves out of the market. But it's a good subject for banter.

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

I belong to an HMO and it works fairly well for me, with Senior dimensions, a joint medicare operation, It would be free to me, but since my wife is younger, I pay 250.00 a mo. for the coverage. I recently was hospitalized for 4 days and it cost me about 100.00, I'm thinking that would have cost me about $4500.00 in the free market world, $4500.00 I don't have. Dr. visits are 5 bucks and specialists 10 bucks. The wait for a specialist has been running about a month from your Dr. appt. Most people in the US can't afford a medical emergency without some type of insurance. I still Believe a single payer system with civilian oversight is the answer. I trust our government more than corporations, you at least get a vote with the government. One of the top reasons for Bankruptcy in this country has been medical bills. I remember when we first found out our son was a schizophrenic, the medical bills for his hospitalization and Dr. bills was over $85,000, we could not afford them at that time, (Actually at no time) and were forced into Bankruptcy. The richest nation in the world has no universal health care plan, disgusting!

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

The only solution is to put consumers back in control of their own health care purchases, end the government/corporate lobby-fest on Capitol Hill, and to resurrect the healthcare marketplace that was killed by government so long ago.

i think the gvnmnt isn't so much to blame as the people who turn everything over to lawyers. people have shown that they can't handle accepting that dr.s aren't perfect. call a trial lawyer when your cancer comes back, when your back still hurts, when your baby wasn't what you hoped for, when your child commits suicide. they do all this and jack up the liability ins. that patients wind up paying for with higher insurance premiums.

the gvnmnt just didn't know what to do when the problem exploded in the 80s and politicians were voted in or out based on what ever lip service/hand outs they offered..

In a way I agree with you, There needs to be tort reform as far as the amount a patient is allowed to sue for. But I do beleive there are enough Quacks out there that there needs to be some legal filings in order to weed them out. Problem is that most the bad doctors out there who can't make it out there in the real world end up working for the VA.

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

quacks need to be destroyed, they can be with more vigilance at the state level...state med boards are not difficult to contact and when a dr. goes to a new state to file their credentials should be checked 100% of the time.

i don't know how to do it but if they could limit the sue-age to only what the dr. has instead of delving deep into the well of liability insurance funds that would certainly help.

The only solution is to put consumers back in control of their own health care purchases, end the government/corporate lobby-fest on Capitol Hill, and to resurrect the healthcare marketplace that was killed by government so long ago.

If you are referring to private health insurance, you must be Joking. The corporate medical field has shown it cares more for the bottom line than patients health time after time. The VA system is working just fine. Procedures are usually performed at University teaching hospitals by qualified surgeons that are also teaching students, this is to defray some of the costs. A single payer system would work similar to the VAs system, and still allow the rich to seek their own exclusive Doctors and care. Maybe the commoners wouldn't get the 5 star treatment, but it sure would beat the hell out of the treatment they get now (No treatment). The Va is like any institution, there are good dr.s and bad dr.s, I think the bad dr.s get more of a break, but the surgeons are still top drawer. A lot of VA dr.s are care managers. They get results from your blood and urine and monitor them on a computer and regulate your medicine. If any red flags show up, they schedule you an appt with a specialist. The care management I get from VA is much more comprehensive than the care I get from my HMO. They don't have a computer screen with all my statisatics available when ever I show up, The screen shows all the information needed to tell if you are well. If one of your vital statistics (Like blood suger) shows out of range, a red flag shows on the monitor and lets the dr. know to address that issue! Under VA health care, If you have an emergency, you call an ambulance and go to the local hospital, the VA re-imburses the hospital and Ambulance service. Under Bush, even with the increased load of returning wounded from Iraq, he has been cutting VA funding, Criminal behavior from the decider. We need to take the corporate out of health care. They are the scourge of America! As far as the inventive aspect of corporations, college labs could take over that job, in fact they do the lions share now anyway!

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

agreed on the "criminal cutting VA funding" notion.

if we didn't have such close collaboration of private and university research, the system would be nowhere near as great as it is Med. the kids graduate and move on to go to those corps, the "carrot" is actually quite inspiring... what would really deal with the issue you're looking at here is less greedy business leaders to run those corps.

I'll agree with that, but where in this Human greed factor would you find these benevolent leaders. The Corporations breed greed. The proverbial carrot may entice youngsters into the corporate world, but once enscounced in it they are put on the ratrace fast track where you either sink or swim. I myself experienced the fringes of this when I worked for So. Cal. Edison in the 60s, the politics of greed were even visible at the lowest ranks of leadership. By the time you get in a leadership position, you are so brainwashed to the bottom line philosophy, that benevolence is the farthest thing from your mind. These leaders are less human than a few dogs I've owned!

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.