Next US President: Wishes and Expectactions

[DeepSix]

Originally Posted by Deathblow

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I'm not talking about the *availability* of generic drugs, I'm talking about choices between drugs that are already equally available. Make sense? Your reaction will problably be... "But that doesn't make sense? Why would the government force doctors to use a more expensive drug when an equally effective, but cheaper drug is available?"...Exactly, it doesn't make sense at all. They are policies handed down by a large government agency that is so many ways is inefficient and inflexible and should not be in ultimate control of all things healthcare.
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Now the issue rises again, "who will ultimately controls healthcare decisions". The man or woman standing in front of you that talks to you and hears your symptoms and complaints, or a large federal program and hands down policies from Washington, ultimately controlled by politicians in Congress. National healthcare programs will have expanded coverage, but definant pittfalls, that is fact....

Precisely, and the example of the FDA's handling of prescription drugs highlights perfectly what we could expect from government-run healthcare. Expanded coverage is not synonymous with improved quality. An assembly line improves speed but not necessarily quality or attention to detail - as the Soviets discovered after they'd performed radialkerototomy (r/k) surgery on hundreds of people. In the U.S., doctors found r/k to be unsatisfactory and were free to move on to better practices.

The ethical standards and intelligent decisions of doctors, made in consultation with patients they are familiar with, are far better than any blanket policy can be, which by their nature cannot accommodate individual needs. Doctors treat people as individual patients; the government treats them as statistics.

Let me put it this way - as far as the United States government is concerned, I am merely a social security number. All they care about is whether or not I've paid my taxes. On the other hand, my doctor knows me personally; to him I am not just another case. Let's say that down the road I develop heart problems. The government looks at me as a case and says, "Put him on such-and-such a drug for his blood pressure and give him a pacemaker." Right. On they go to the next case. My doctor, on the other hand, looks at my personal circumstances and says, "At age 99, a pacemaker will do him little good, especially if he should suffer some other malady of old age. I do not want to risk making him a vegetable for the sake of keeping his heart pumping. Therefore I will make him as comfortable as I can, but - unless he wishes it so - I do not think the pacemaker or the stresses of surgery would be best for him." The government solved the arithmetic with amazing efficiency; the doctor treated a human being after considering his quality of life.