Any mandatory and comprehensive plan will finish off quality medicine in this country–because it will finish off the medical profession. It will deliver doctors bound hands and feet to the mercies of the bureaucracy. The only hope–for the doctors, for their patients, for all of us–is for the doctors to assert a moral principle. I mean: to assert their own personal individual rights–their real rights in this issue–their right to their lives, their liberty, their property, their pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence applies to the medical profession too. We must reject the idea that doctors are slaves destined to serve others at the behest of the state. – AYN RAND
It is unlikely that any significant improvements in health care policy will come out of the U.S. Congress in the next two years. However, major changes might develop at the state level–especially in California–for two reasons. First, as the most populous...
The American Medical Association (AMA) is now engaged in an irrational effort to prevent cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. The campaign, which recently included a “fly-in” where AMA members personally appealed to members of Congress in Washington D.C.,...
When the United States of America got its start, the general idea was that individuals should be left free to carve out their own lives free of government interference, based on the principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Gradually...
Since the Federal Food and Drug Act came into law in 1906, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had a century to develop their methodology for insuring drug safety. After expanding to an annual budget of $1.5 billion and a staff of 10,000, they continue to seek...
It is precisely because our health care is so important to each of us that we need to be especially careful to preserve and protect the rights of physicians and other health care providers.
In response to the National Security Agency’s acquisition of private telephone call databases, a lot of politicians — even those who were given frequent briefings about the program for more than four years — claim to be deeply shocked about this...
When you file your tax return on April 15, know that even more of your taxes will be eaten up by government spending on health care. You should also ask why so much of the income you have left is spent on health care and health insurance. The two questions are...
The Massachusetts law for universal healthcare is a boondoggle. Rather than admit that the problems with healthcare in America are the caused by the government’s interference with the personal choices of its citizens, the Massachusetts proposal mandates that...
The failure of Canada’s experiment with socialist medicine is readily apparent: long waiting lists and wait times for specialized services, conveyor-belt treatment for routine services, chronic shortages of family doctors and hospital beds, gross inefficiencies,...
Most talk of addictions as something over which the individual is helpless. Yet how does this explain that so many end their addictions? People quit smoking all the time. People quit alcohol. They quit nail-biting. They even quit heroin and crack cocaine. These are...
Unfortunately, when medical care is made free, the quantity of it that people attempt to consume becomes virtually limitless.
This rationale and its acceptance by a judge is an illustration of what Ayn Rand, with good reason, used to describe contemptuously as a “collectivist stewpot.”
The rise in health care costs is exactly what one should expect from the government’s long-standing policy of collectivizing the cost of medical care.
“Universal Health Care” is the increasing drumbeat of advocates who want Americans to place all responsibility for their health care in the hands of government. They say health care needs require us to put aside such considerations as personal choice and...
Republicans in Congress are now struggling to carve some spending cuts out of their recent vast increases in the Federal Budget. Democrats, while critical of deficit spending, are helpfully suggesting even more spending increases. The best quick fix would be to delay...
In 1997, George Zeliotis, a Quebec citizen, learned that he needed hip-replacement surgery. But his troubles were just beginning. As is standard in Canada for non-emergency surgery, Zeliotis was put on a waiting list behind everyone else in Quebec who needed the same...
This month, in a 73-page position paper, California ‘s insurance commissioner, John Garamendi, proposed a government takeover of medicine. That the bureaucrat who would be governor prescribed more government intervention is not surprising. But, because the...
What if your doctor told you that you had to wait a year to replace your painful, arthritic hip? If you’re an American with health insurance you wouldn’t stand for such a delay; you’d switch doctors or hospitals and get the operation done quickly....
One of the few bright spots in paying for health care today has been the introduction of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), in conjunction with low-premium, high-deductible insurance policies. In what is perhaps the most popular medical insurance reform in history, more...
A worldwide campaign begun in 1988 to eradicate the polio infection was on the verge of success when, early in 2003, a conspiracy theory took hold of the Muslim population in northern Nigeria.
The cost of health care will continue to rise for a number of good reasons. We are living longer, and the retirement of the baby boom generation will increase demand on health care. Cutting-edge technology and new drugs will improve the quality and length of...
When you see a commercial for a new car, a new movie, or a new brand of breakfast cereal it’s because the manufacturers of those products want to incur as much advertising expense as possible so they can pass the cost along to you. Then you can’t afford to...
When politicians proclaim that you have a “right” to health care, they actually mean many other things. First, that they want unlimited power to force others to provide you with health care–whatever the cost. They also mean that you have no right to...
Since the Federal Food and Drug Act came into law in 1906, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had a century to develop their methodology for insuring drug safety. After expanding to an annual budget of $1.5 billion and a staff of 10,000, they continue to seek...
As you raise a pen to sign your tax return this year, you will undoubtedly regret that the United States Treasury is taking so much of your income. You should also ask why so much of the income you have left is spent on health care and health insurance. The two...
The prescription drug benefit is a monster that should be killed before it is hatched.
In “Die in Britain , survive in U.S. ,” the cover article of the February 2005 issue of The Spectator, a British magazine, James Bartholomew details the downside of Britain’ s universal healthcare system. Among women with breast cancer, for example,...
As studies continue to be released that explore the cardiovascular risks of Vioxx, Celebrex, Bextra, and other pharmaceuticals, the FDA has come under widespread criticism for failing to protect the public from “unsafe” drugs. The lesson commonly drawn...
The year was 1901 and someone in Howards Grove, Wisconsin, observed that the first automobile to appear in town was driven by a man from nearby Sheboygan. A century later, the town is making its mark on another new vehicle–which has the potential to...
The Presidential Election in 2024 might hinge on the present health care crisis, but none of the candidates have been able to propose any solutions. The band-aid since the last Democratic Administration (2016) has been three increases in the “temporary”...
To many it appears the Bush and Kerry healthcare plans are as different as an antibiotic and a placebo. However, in fundamental terms, both are prescribing the same “cure” to our healthcare system that has been offered for decades: greater doses of...
The choice facing Americans is stark: the rights-respecting free market of capitalism, where goods and services are produced in abundance, including health care–or the chronic disasters of socialism, where thousands die because of continuous shortages.
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