Tuesday, September 28, 2010

This, in Pledge to America, Good

Not everything in it is good, but there is much to be liked about that Pledge to America.

Like its calling for the repeal and replacement of the recent health bill. I do not know that the Pledge says where the replacement program should take us, but I do know where I would like it to take us.

Back to more of a free-market system.

As our health system has gotten more and more expensive, the voice of those suggesting a government system has grown louder. Your private enterprise system isn't working, they've said.

And, they are right.

But the reason it isn't working is because we have placed so many constraints on it, to the point of strangling the free market.

Then, we turn around and say, Get rid of it?!

Ambulance bills are $800 and more, and, yet we continue to allow ambulances to have exclusive contracts for certain areas? Let's do away with such monopolies and encourage competition. If bills are high and you can see there is no competition, you're overlooking the obvious by not trying a return to a competitive market.

Look around, we've stripped out the competition in other places, a well.

Our workplace, which for some time has been providing us insurance, often gives us but a choice of one.

And, this: Even though a medicine sometimes is nothing but extract from a single plant, there is no such thing as a person getting the plant, pulling out the extract, pressing it into a pill, and selling it.

Yes, it often should be as easy as that. You can make the person responsible for what he sells without making it impossible for him to sell it.

Part of health care reform should include making it possible for most anyone to sell such pharmaceuticals. (I repeat, I'm speaking of such one-ingredient pills, and allowing that the maker should be responsible for what he sells). If it is a simple product, why ever would we not allow most people to make and sell it?

When we started about health care reform a few years ago, I understood we were wanting to reduce outrageous medical bills. The real way to do that is to make the changes in places where we can see we are causing the expenses to be so high.

Some of the things we are doing wrong are obvious, so let's change them. Let's reinstate free enterprise. It's a simple fix, but one that probably will yield a great reduction in health care costs.

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