The Democrat's new star is
taking verbal beatings in the major media as she is never prepared to
substantively answer any question on her nine point, "everything for
free" socialist program. Her focus
on "Health Care," which should be called "Sick Care" as
that is a case where she may have a point and even a wedge as it is grossly
over-priced. Why should this be?
The "Health Care"
market is not a free market, but one that is very regulated both by government
and big business. It appears that
everything possible is done to "keep the club small" for physicians
who are often referred to as "Men of science," when they are
not.
Science is experimental and
medicine, like engineering, is not. Both
of these groups do what is known to work and approved by a medical hierarchy. The American Medical Association has much to
say about what can be done in all aspects of medicine. This situation alone inflates the price of
medicine.
The drugs that are used are
exclusively developed, tested and certified by very large corporations as they
are the only ones that can afford to take a new drug from discovery through
patenting, testing and certification. It
now costs $5 billion to bring a new drug to market, add the marketing costs and
you are dealing with "real money," but economies are possible.
The Federal Drug
Administration testing and verification procedures have become increasingly
rigorous and repetitive to the point small drug companies have accused the
large ones of having "Bought off the FDA to freeze us out!" "60 Minutes" has developed conclusive evidence for this accusation and cases need to be prosecuted.
If a drug has been certified
in a modern country with rigorous certification practices we should be able to
approve it here after an examination of the certification work done abroad
instead requiring more to be done here.
The drug industry will fight that effort as they wish to quell the
competition.
The charges we see in
hospitals are nothing short of "highway robbery." What happens in hip replacement operation,
which is a few hours long, but was billed at $132,000! Or, a cataractdectomy, removal of an original
lens and replacement with a new one was billed at $23,000! A search on the Internet showed the typical
cost is $2,000. The bill we received
included a $7,000 charge for an "Operating Theater," which was a room
in need of repainting with the operating microscope a 30 year-old Nikon and I can
assume all the equipment was of similar age.
This gear was 20 years beyond any amortization schedule and it should be a
crime to make any charge for it.
We searched the Internet to
find two master studies, studies of studies, with 100 in each, of the
cataractdectomy market and found the average charge was $2,000. We documented everything, wrote a letter to
the local Distict Attorney, copy to the hospital, and heard nothing. One month later we had the other eye done,
which is the usual procedure and the next bill came for $2,000. It was remarkable how much the service
improved for the second "procedure."
It pays to be prickly.
It may be possible that Ms. Alexandria
Ocasio Cortez has a case for "Sick Care," as we prefer to call it,
but she needs to do some work and not come off as yet another lunatic Democrat
raving into the night illuminated only by police cars her friends are burning.
Ms. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a Democrat characteristically shallow of factual knowledge or even how to
access them, and we are not saying she may be right, but she will have to point a
way to solving these problems and not just generate more hate.
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