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Health Care
Price-Fixing at Your Sickbed
 Socialized Vet Care
Several years ago a friend came to me with this story:
"I had a heart attack and had to have an angioplasty. I'm self-employed and have no health insurance. They billed me over $10,000. When I checked what social security paid out for the same procedures it was thousands of dollars less. I am too young to qualify for social security. Insured patients pay only a fraction of my cost. Why is it the uninsured are the only ones who have to pay exorbitant prices?" -"Dave"
This is a sad, albeit typical, tale. Fortunately hospitals are legally bound to treat someone without insurance or they'd have bodies piling up at the doors. Uninsured Americans live in fear of illness in these economically unstable times. They avoid going to the doctor as it can cost anywhere from $70 and up just to sit in a room in his office. And the variation in charges is outright robbery.
The AMA has served its purpose, which was to promote scientific medical methods in Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century America.
Since the times have changed and scientific method is looked upon with a religious status, the AMA becomes more and more like the Catholic Church. Novel ideas and upstart scientists are vilified even if validated unless they present no threat to the establishment. And like the Church, incompetent and dangerous members of the "clergy" are protected and shifted to practice in different areas even if they have committed gross malpractice or neglect. The AMA covers the butt of the AMA.
It's time to stabilize the health care system. Across the board pricing for hospital time and medications. No more $12.00 aspirins. And when we are buying American meds in America we should be getting the best prices. After all, we are the ones who paid for the R&D, and on whom they were tested. No more "cheaper in Canada". And we shouldn't have different prices for the same procedure depending a patient's insurance status. One doctor, one procedure, one price.
And so I say to my friend at the beginning of this writing - Yes, you are right. It's time we made the health care system equitable. We pay them to do a job for us.
If they were plumbers we wouldn't stand for it.
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