In the January 6th, 2003 Wall Street Journal editorial it is stated: “Adding a drug benefit [to Medicare] makes sense, but only if it is added as part of reform that introduces market incentives and competition to Medicare.”
Wrong. Adding a drug benefit to Medicare does not make sense if it’s true, as the Journal implies, that Medicare is a morally and fiscally bankrupt program.
It’s obvious that Medicare is fiscally bankrupt. Medicare is morally bankrupt because it forces American citizens to pay for its maintenance whether they want to or not. In the process, it turns doctors into employees of the government and patients into wards of the government. Medicare is socialized medicine for the elderly. It’s wrong for the same reason all socialized medicine is wrong.
Medicare can’t be reformed. By its nature, it is a coercive and bureaucratic program whose sole effect has been to cause a deterioration in the health care field. I am in the field and see evidence of this every day: complacent 9-5 doctors; distracting and contradictory regulations; the sacrifice of creativity and innovation to following the latest government directive.
Adding prescription drugs as a benefit to Medicare will only strengthen the tentacles of government control over medicine — only now the pharmaceutical industry will be sacrificed as well.
