Medicine?

I have to agree with Obama on one thing.  The medical system in the US has to be fixed.  It is a train wreck.  It is too expensive, it delivers marginal results, it is run more like a medieval guild than like a cornerstone of a modern society.

But whenever you talk about changing the system, people start freaking out.  You mention that the government might want to have something to do with it and folks start screaming about creeping socialism.  If you let it be run by “free-market” principles and allow more freedom than what is current, you will get something like the banks. 

I agree that something has to be done, but the boyz in Washington are looking at no matter what they do, things won’t improve.  They will cobble something together where things will probably get worse.  They will do it this way because of the massive amount of money that the medical equipment, pharmaceutics, diagnostic, doctors unions, nurses unions, lawyers, etc, etc, etc pour into their system to keep the gravy train going.   What we are going to have at the end of this exercise is a streamlined means for the medical industry to get into our pockets.  They most certainly won’t make less, they really can’t deliver more, and they are going to lose revenue.

You see, we don’t really have a health care system, we have a health care market.  The elected government official takes in legal bribes from lobbyists in the form of campaign contributions.  He will make sure any law which passes will not upset the apple cart.  The non-elected government official will take his bribes in the promise of a revolving door in industry where he will be paid beaucoup dollars in a future job to look the other way as industry does what it wants.

So I truly wish BHO and the others the best of luck, but as we ensure that our politicians have their spines removed in the election process, I am not holding out much hope.