When they pass socialized medicine you can expect the same fate that patrons of the post office have experienced over the years. Rising costs and horrible service. I would not be surprised if in a decade hospitals will close on Sundays, and Pharmacys will close on weekends. If you doubt me just consider the proposal that the Postal Service will not deliver mail on Saturdays and close many of their remote locations, because the costs of running a government program is burdened by the exorbitant salary and pension costs. It will be the same with "OBAMA CARE"!

Hey Sowell,

I think you're missing the big picture here. Health care isn't about us right now. This is just to give the Ivy league grads that are coming out now something to campaign on and fix 20 or 25 years from now. Look how the league always wants to fix something that previous graduates put in place and will even put back in place policies of many moons ago that didn't work out back then. they just keep recycling problems to keep themselves occupied/employed and in power.

They know that citizens have short attention spans and practically no knowledge of economic history. History does keep repeating itself and it does so in cycles that keep governments and high dollar colleges fully employed.

Luckily for us citizens, common sense is not taught at any college, but comes to folks through experience. That is what will bring us through this cycle. More people with commons sense and a moral compass that points North than there are folks from the league.

"But nobody believes that Mormons' doctors are that much better than other doctors. "

Fascinating, Mr Sowell. Yet, those who massage WHO statistics so that American health care APPEARS to rank 37th in the world (or wherever they're claiming we fall today) do pretend that countries that supposedly outlive us must have better doctors. So using their "logic" America should all covert to Mormonism and then our health care "crisis" will be solved because those fabulous Mormon doctors will make it all better.

Filtering useful data out of piles of statistics is not a precise science (well, the mathematics portion of the problem IS precise science, but the interpretive aspects are not) but that is no excuse for the misleading and flatly-dishonest UN stats "proving" America has lousy health care. That's not simply incompetence, since these problems have been brought to their attention before and they just keep repeating the massaged numbers.

The infant mortality rates are misleading because other countries count their infant deaths much differently than we do here. Standard statistical analysis requires adjustment for those factors and makes a straight one-for-one comparison highly improper. That would be like saying drivers in Boston are more dangerous than those in NYC because Bostonians have far more accidents. But if NY doesn't count accidents resulting in less than $10,000 damage while Boston does, that obviously skews the data. And if NY doesn't count accidents involving trucks, or those involving cars versus pedestrians -- while Boston does -- it's easy to see how an improper one-to-one comparison falsely convicts Boston as the more dangerous city.

That's exactly what's happening with these misleading UN stats. They're massaged to make American health care look worse compared to those countries with Socialized health care.

Both media and analysts are missing one of the major reasons America's health care costs are so high.

For our purposes let's call it "over care." We will define "over care" by an illustration.

Most doctors are now employees working for healthcare providers which are becoming less numerous and bigger... conglomerates may fit..

There are many healthcare providers which begin with primary care physicians and clinics, move on to specialists, laboratories, ambulatory surgical units, and full hospitals under the same ownership. In other words, much healthcare is provided under, figuratively, one roof.

Their doctors are compensated on the basis of the number of patients they see, and are bonused on the number of tests they prescribe. Am I saying most doctors are unethical? No, what I am saying is that because of both defensive medicine and "over care" many tests are ordered that may not be necessary or are duplicated.

Let me give a personal example: I have peripheral neuropathy. My primary care physician, who worked for a specific healthcare provider, referred me to a neurologist, who also worked for that same provider. I had two x-rays from an imaging department from that same healthcare provider, a CAT scan, laboratory tests, and a full biopsy in the hospital by a neurosurgeon (all from that same healthcare provider).

I also had some sort of an electrical stimulus test, by the neurologist, and the billed for that was from that same healthcare provider.

In short, every physician, every test, every specialist, every aspect of my care came from the same provider. The end result is that I still do not know what causes the neuropathy, nor is there any therapy or medication prescribed that will be helpful. But the total bill, which I never saw, must have been enormous.

Actually, there is probably nothing to be prescribed in a medication or therapy that would be helpful, but my point is that much of this was certainly unnecessary because no specific diagnosis nor remedy was forthcoming and the common causes of the neuropathy were likely determined by just one or two tests if they could indeed make such a determination. In my specific case, the neuropathy is probably caused by spinal compression and aging. I believe the neurologist knew this with not more than two visits, and that most of those tests were superfluous.

That is "over care." It is too much care provided on a fee-for-service basis. I should point out that I am on Medicare, and a 79-year-old male.

It should also be pointed out that I was not charged for anything beyond what I pay for a supplemental policy, and my Medicare charge deducted from my Social Security check.

I have not touched on the wastes in equipment provided by Medicare which is another enormous topic that results in unbelievable expense and equipment lying around, in perfect condition, which is not used and which Medicare has no way to reclaim.

I would suggest talking to some physicians about these specific problems and you would get far more information than I have provided.

Bob McKune