Unhealthy Choice

Laugh and say I'm green
I've seen things you've never seen
Talk behind my back
I'm off the beaten track
--The Who

Interesting tidbits on US health care history in this piece. The first century of our country's history found three types of docs: eclectics (plant remedies, bed rest, steam baths), homeopaths (various medicines in small doses while letting body heal itself), and allopaths (blood letting and high dose injection of heavy metal compounds).

The allopaths were able to establish themselves mainstream medicine, despite their poor performance record, and founded the AMA in 1847. The allopaths and the AMA worked with government to reduce competition, raise barriers to entry, and effectively provide monopolistic privledge to AMA docs (higher prices, reduced supply).

There are also interesting accounts of the hospital and health insurance industry. The key takeaway should be that health care has been anything but a 'free market' in this country for many, many years. That we have consequentky experienced rising costs, lower quality, lack of access should not be the least bit surprising.

At the end of the piece, the author suggests that many of features included in the recent health care bill were actually devised or at least endorsed by Republicans. This should also come as no surprise, as both sides of the aisle have demonstrated proclivity for big, intrusive government thru their behavior.

btw, I saw the interview the author refers to between Mitt Romney and Bill O'Reilly. Despite Romney's parries, O'Reilly would not let Romney off the hook for implementing the costly state health plan in Massachussetts (In my view, O'Reilly's capacity for staying on point makes him one of the sharper interviewers out there and why he attracts a large audience. That he is a 'tough interview' is also why many avoid him).

If critical thinking is indeed enjoying a renaissance in this country (and growing sense is that it is), then politicians on both sides of the aisle are going to have rough times justifying their value as elected officials in the eyes of many voters.