As someone who was once rushed to a hospital in the middle of the
night, because of taking a medication that millions of people take
every day without the slightest problem, I have a special horror of
life and death medical decisions being made by bureaucrats in
Washington, about patients they have never laid eyes on.

On another occasion, I was told by a doctor that I would have died if
I had not gotten to him in time, after an allergic reaction to eating
one of the most healthful foods around. On still another occasion, I
was treated with a medication that causes many people big problems and
was urged to come back to the hospital immediately if I had a really
bad reaction. But I had no reaction at all, went home, felt fine and
slept soundly through the night.

My point is that everybody is different. Millions of children eat
peanut butter sandwiches every day but some children can die from
eating peanut butter. Some vaccines and medications that save many
lives can also kill some people.

Are decisions made by doctors who have treated the same patient for
years to be over-ruled by bureaucrats sitting in front of computer
screens in Washington, following guidelines drawn up with the idea of
"bringing down the cost of medical care"?

The idea is even more absurd than the idea that you can add millions
of people to a government medical care plan without increasing the
costs. It is also more dangerous.

What is both dangerous and mindless is rushing a massive new medical
care scheme through Congress so fast that members of Congress do not
even have time to read it before voting on it. Legislation that is far
less sweeping in its effects can get months of hearings before
Congressional committees, followed by debates in the Senate and the
House of Representatives, with all sorts of people voicing their views
in the media and in letters to Congress, while ads from people on both
sides of the issue appear in newspapers and on television.

If this new medical scheme is so wonderful, why can't it stand the
light of day or a little time to think about it?

The obvious answer is that the administration doesn't want us to know
what it is all about or else we would not go along with it. Far better
to say that we can't wait, that things are just too urgent. This
tactic worked with whizzing the "stimulus" package through Congress,
even though the stimulus package itself has not worked.

Any serious discussion of government-run medical care would have to
look at other countries where there is government-run medical care. As
someone who has done some research on this for my book "Applied
Economics," I can tell you that the actual consequences of government-
controlled medical care is not a pretty picture, however inspiring the
rhetoric that accompanies it.

Thirty thousand Canadians are passing up free medical care at home to
go to some other country where they have to pay for it. People don't
do that without a reason.

But Canadians are better off than people in some other countries with
government-controlled medical care, because they have the United
States right next door, in case their medical problems get too serious
to rely on their own system.

But where are Americans to turn if we become like Canada? Where are we
to go when we need better medical treatment than Washington
bureaucrats will let us have? Mexico? The Caribbean?

Many people do not understand that it is not just a question of
whether government bureaucrats will agree to pay for particular
medical treatments. The same government-control mindset that decides
what should and should not be paid for can also decide that the
medical technology or pharmaceutical drugs that they control should
not be for sale to those who are willing to pay their own money.

Right now, medications or treatments that have not been approved by
the Food and Drug Administration are medications or treatments that
you are not allowed to buy with your own money, no matter how
desperate your medical condition, and no matter how many years these
medications or treatments may have been used without dire effects in
other countries.

The crucial word is not "care" but "control."

http://www.tsowell.com

http://townhall.com/columnists/Thoma...versus_control
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