Customer Reviews

The Dangers of Socialized Medicine

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Published by the Future of Freedom Foundation, this slim collection of essays on government intervention in medicine makes an excellent case for a complete free market in health care. Published in 1994, many of the chapters specifically address the horrendous Clinton Health Care Plan, which fortunately never even made it to a floor vote in Congress.

This book presents a very ignorant, shallow, and misleading view of universal healthcare. When people make decisions about their health based on their finances, the incentives encourage less care, not more care. If the U.S. humanized medicine and made it truly available (and not a money issue), people would get preventive care. The fact is that under our current system with private insurers, many people have insurance and still can't afford to seek preventative care because of premiums, deductibles and coinsurance. As for crack heads, most uninsured Americans are not crack heads and crack heads typically get free healthcare at the emergency room or in jail. As a professional and high income earner, I resent paying such high premiums and coinsurance to ensure that my HMO's CEO gets a multi-million dollar bonus and insured people like myself receive denials. This is not a liberal democrat vs. conservative republican issue; this is an American problem.

The fear mongers like Jacob Hornberger are blurring the issue in an attempt to keep Americans in a state of demoralized, debt-ridden fear. The fact is that other first world countries have universal medicine and democracy; what kind of message are we as Americans sending to others when we send our sick into debt because they need an operation? The reality is that it is commonplace for those with insurance to battle with their HMOs, PPOs, etc. over claims and procedures. My HMO should not be making my healthcare decisions; how could they possibly have my best interests at heart when they are concerned with their profit margin?