Given the structure they are setting up, doctors are going to retire early, which means there will be a lot less of them around, and the creativity that brought about the miraculous increases in life expectancy via new medicines and medical treatments will be suffocated. The only new medical treatments and medicines that will be approved will be those by the politically connected. Think nonsense propagandized H1N1 vaccines on steroids. It will be medical treatment by lobbyists.
At LRC, Karen De Coster has posted some background on President Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She writes:
There is an interesting article in CNSNews about Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Donald Berwick, who reveals his passion for central planning and all things socialized.The article links to a June 2009 interview with Berwick in Biotechnology Healthcare. Some snippets from the article:
In a June 2009 interview in Biotechnology Healthcare, Berwick was asked: “Critics of CER (Comparative Effectiveness Research) have said that it will lead to rationing of health care.”
He answered: “We can make a sensible social decision and say, ‘Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit [new drug or medical intervention] is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds.’ We make those decisions all the time. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”
In the same interview, he also said, “The social budget is limited—we have a limited resource pool. It makes terribly good sense to at least know the price of an added benefit, and at some point we might say nationally, regionally, or locally that we wish we could afford it, but we can’t.”
Berwick also talked about his romantic view of Britain’s socialized health care system on page 213 of a report he wrote entitled, “A Transatlantic Review of the NHS at 60,” published on July 26, 2008.
“Cynics beware: I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it,” Berwick wrote. “All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country.”Lastly, in the 2008 report, Berwick wrote, “Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must — must — redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and less fortunate.” Here is the 2008 speech where Berwick talks about the “darkness of private enterprise” and lauds a politically accountable system. He adds that “excellent health care is, by definition, redistributional.”
Free markets are a tough thing for many to understand, despite the fact there are nearly daily reminders that messing with free markets only causes poverty and totalitarianism. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union are two recent examples. As is the poverty in Cuba and North Korea. Likewise, the current crisis with the European Union can be attributed to a faulty system set up by men in an attempt over-rule free markets.
Forget the theoretical understanding of how a free market works, the Berwick's of the world can't even grasp these object lessons. In their confusion and madness, these men are now focusing on introducing socialism and totalitarianism for the medical sector. Death will ultimately be the new health policy.
(Thanks to Bob Murphy for the tip on Karen De Coster's post)
Mr. Wenzel. did you have a chance listening to the recordings from Mises circle from saturday?
ReplyDeleteWhat's his argument? His "redistributional" claim is just that - merely a claim. Where's his argument?
ReplyDeleteI guess if something is too expensive, they are just going to shut it off as an option. Can't imagine how in the dark ages our technology would be if they decided what was too expensive, and didn't let the market bring prices down. We probably shouldn't all have flat screen TVs, since they were so damn expensive when first developed.
ReplyDeleteI fail to see what is gained by making health care a public choice rather than a private one if there is still going to be rationing, which seems to be the central argument against free market health care ("the poor will be arbitrarily denied health care because they can't afford it.")
ReplyDeleteObviously, for the political class, what is gained is power. But it's really amazing that the average person thinks they're gaining anything when the elite admits they are not.