The RLC supports free market health care alternatives. We believe that hospitals, physicians, nurses, pharmaceutical companies and other medical professionals can provide high-quality, reasonably-priced health care without government intervention.
After years of failed policy and government intervention in health care, it is evident that the real solution relies on competition in the open marketplace not in socialized healthcare schemes that promise something impossible.
For decades, the U.S. healthcare system was the envy of the entire world. Not coincidentally, there was far less government involvement in medicine during this time. America had the finest doctors and hospitals, patients enjoyed high-quality, affordable medical care, and thousands of private charities provided health services for the poor. Doctors focused on treating patients, without the red tape and threat of lawsuits that plague the profession today. Most Americans paid cash for basic services, and had insurance only for major illnesses and accidents. This meant both doctors and patients had an incentive to keep costs down, as the patient was directly responsible for payment rather than Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) or government program.
Since we changed our ERISA law and our tax laws, the medical industry is no longer run by the physicians and medical professionals, but by large government regulated HMOs. Few people realize HMOs are government-created and taxpayer-subsidized entities that pay physicians and hospitals predetermined, per-capita fees, regardless of what medical services are actually provided.
Congress forced HMOs on us in the early 1970’s and rose to prominence through federal legislation, incentives, and coercion. To compound problems the government encourages the proliferation of HMOs through grants and loans given to them; Medicare and Medicaid contracts with them; and unlike HMOs, independent physicians are prevented, by antitrust law, from joining together to bargain with employers for health-care contracts.
In a free market, HMOs could never become a significant factor in the economy. Few would pay for an insurance policy that, in a medical catastrophe, arbitrarily capitates payments to physicians for life-saving services. The purpose of health insurance is to protect against unforeseen medical disasters requiring expensive treatment. HMO’s achieve the opposite–they make the patient uncertain of what vital procedures may be denied him as a result of Washington’s desire to ration medicine. It is government intervention that fuels HMOs.
The doctors, nurses and medical professionals are unhappy. Prices to the consumer are increasing and the quality of care is deteriorating. Doctors are working longer and harder and making less money. The drug companies and the HMOs lobby in Washington to control the industry supporting socialized medical programs. Socialized medicine in any form is not the answer.
If the problem in the medical industry is government intervention, more of what is causing the problem is not going to solve the problem. There is only one way to bring the benefits of the free market into health care: end government intervention. and create more competition. The lesson is clear; when government and other third parties get involved, health care costs spiral. This solution would increase entry into the healthcare industries, increase the supply of doctors, and encourage everyone – doctors, hospitals, patients, and drug companies – to keep costs down and increase the availability of these goods and services for everyone.
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