Posted yesterday on Twitter at @GGReisman
Socialized Medicine is a mailed fist in a velvet glove. The velvet glove is the promise of “free” medical care. The mailed fist is the reality of medical care limited to what the government deems it can afford while prohibiting you from spending your own money on your own care.
The prohibition of people spending their own money on their own medical care is implied in the very expression “Single-Payer System.” Those words mean that the government is the only payer. The individual citizens are prohibited from being payers.
Indeed, the government cannot leave people free to spend their own money on their own medical care, because their doing so would draw resources from the socialized system. The better doctors and hospitals would cater to those with higher incomes and greater spending power.
Here is a temporary, compromise solution for medical care. Let the government continue to provide financing for the care of the indigent. Let everyone else have access to the government’s system at rates that cover, or more than cover, its costs, if such care is what they prefer.
At the same time, allow the development of a new medical system that will be free of all government regulation or control. This system will be exempt from licensing requirements, FDA approval, whatever. Those frightened by such freedom can take refuge in the government’s system.
Expect radical cost reductions, bringing more and better medical care within reach of more and more people.
