The "Federal Health Board:" Another Scheme to Ration Healthcare
by Richard Parker M.D. (January 6, 2009)

Article address: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5388

Summary: Never mind what you and your physician think is the best
course of treatment, the 'Federal Health Board' in Washington will
make all those decisions for you.


Tom Daschle, President-elect Obama's nominee for Secretary of Health
and Human Services, has big plans for healthcare. Mr. Daschle has
proposed a new "Federal Health Board," an agency that would have
unprecedented powers over the healthcare industry.

This new federal board would essentially determine by government
fiat what doctors can and cannot do to treat their patients. This
represents not only a vast increase in government regulations, but
the virtual elimination of healthcare decisions at the point of
service, and the specter of government bureaucrats making life and
death decisions over physicians and patients.

Never mind what you and your physician think is the best course of
treatment, the "Federal Health Board" in Washington will make all
those decisions for you.

You and your doctor think you need surgery-sorry, the "Federal
Health Board "has determined that this is not "cost effective."
Your child needs certain medications to fight a life threatening
illness-you're out of luck, the "Federal Health Board" has
determined that these medications are not "efficient" use of
healthcare. Your doctor thinks you need open heart surgery tomorrow
to save your life-too bad, the "Federal Health Board" has determined
that others with "more need" will come first.

The intent here is obvious: Mr. Daschle's proposal is yet another
enormous step toward the final end of all government controlled
healthcare schemes--the *rationing* of healthcare.

I have spent nearly thirty years studying, training for and
practicing medicine. The idea that bureaucrats in Washington know
better how to treat my patients is one of the biggest frauds ever
perpetrated on the American people. And yet this idea is precisely
what Mr. Obama and Daschle will force onto all Americans.

Healthcare is already one of the most regulated industries, which is
why costs are out of control. Whenever government promises a "free"
service paid by taxpayers (Medicaid, Medicare), costs can do nothing
else but skyrocket.

Demand for any "free" service explodes exponentially. More and more
cry out for more "free" services, everything from brain surgery to
splints, crutches and toenail removals.

The government is then forced to begin cutting costs and services by
the only means possible to the state: *rationing* by the use of
force, which is the real purpose of the "Federal Health Board.

The underlying and unchallenged idea is that healthcare is somehow a
right to be provided by the government.

In reality, however, rights are the freedom to act, not to loot the
products and services of others. Arbitrarily granting someone the
right to the products or services of another necessarily enslaves
those who must produce them to those who consume them. And down
this road is where America's healthcare system is already moving -
hospitals, physicians, nurses, pharmaceutical companies are all
gradually but steadily being doomed to a level of serfdom not seen
since the dark ages. A "Federal Board" is another massive step
toward that end.

In a free and moral market healthcare system, healthcare decisions
are made where they should be: between you and your physician. You
have the freedom to chose and *pay* for your services, and your
physician has the freedom to determine what is the best course of
treatment.

Those who cannot afford their own healthcare are dependent upon the
charity of others, but they have no right to force physicians and
hospitals into a state of government enforced servitude.

The new "Federal Health Board", however, will take America another
giant step down the path of the rationing of healthcare, where power
lusting bureaucrats will decide what treatments are available, what
treatments the government will pay for, who will receive what
treatment, when and where.

The only moral and practical solution is to get government out of
healthcare altogether. Eliminate Medicare, Medicare and the entire
bureaucratic machinery that now shackles medicine.

Allow physicians and hospitals to compete in a real free market and
give patients the freedom to chose, and then watch healthcare costs
plummet, as they have for computers, food and cell phones.

In a truly free healthcare market (not the mongrel "mixed" system we
now have), healthcare dollars and effort would go to where there is
the most demand, and to those who are most efficient at using them.

If patients had the freedom of choice and doctors the freedom to
compete, there wouldn't be any such thing as a "healthcare crises,"
nor would there be any need for a "Federal Health Board" to ration
healthcare.

About the Author:

Richard Parker is a practicing emergency physician. He holds a BA
from Brown and MD from Yale University, has published in the
scientific/professional literature and has written Op-eds for the
Ayn Rand Institute and Capitalism Magazine. He is owner and
moderator of www.OActiveAtlas.com, a philosophical discussion forum.