Question of the Times.....

Q: Is it economically possible to add the costs of government bureaucracies to the costs of medications and medical treatment have the the total cost of medical care go down?

The concept that the government through its sheer force of involvement adds value is just completely silly. What government does, is that it dumbs down the service, creates lots of paperwork and then claims victory through the use of some silly statistics.

As Thomas Sowell observes....

Many countries around the world already have government-run medical care. People who get sick in these countries usually wait much longer to get treatment, including months on waiting lists for surgery, often paying in pain or debilitation, rather than money.

High-tech medical devices like MRIs are also far less common in these countries than in the United States. With medical care as with anything else, you can always get poorer quality at a lower price, though that is no bargain, especially when you are sick.

What you may have in mind are lower prices with no reduction in quality. While that may be impossible, don't expect that fact to stop politicians from offering it, even if they can't deliver.

What the worshipers of government meddling and involvement in the lives of Americans cite to support their claims that government healthcare is more effective are reams of data that show all kinds of wonderful things. But common sense tells me that we will get a lot less for money we pay now. We will get a lot less through all kinds of normal market mechanisms. We will get less, by delays and long queues waiting for various proceedures. We will get a lot less as government lowers reimbursement rates for typical doctor procedures and fewer doctors will be available for these procedures. We will not get access to certain things. There will be less innovation. And we will also have the same bloodsucking lawyers hovering over us waiting for their chance to sue providers for every mistake, false step, or unavoidable problem. There is no way that the democrats will defund one of their largest donor groups, the American Trial Lawyer Association.