My two cents:

NOTE TO SELF--Don't get sick in Germany. Or Canada.

All kidding aside, though, I think the final question of this article is somewhat lacking. A question I would ask is, "What the ---- can we do to prevent this demented system from taking hold in this country?"

While to many, the concern is that a situation like this MAY occur in the future, the reality is that it ALREADY IS OCCURRING in the US. I am a practicing physician and am already looking at leaving medicine because the pay is not worth the hours away from my family and the hassles of regulation, pay and practice restrictions, etc. This situation has already affected nursing (thus the nursing shortage) and other allied health practitioners. Don't make us practice defensive medicine and have to hire personnel to deal with government regulations and you just might see less expensive, higher quality healthcare that everybody will be able to access.

We need to allow the Medicare and Medicaid systems collapse and die under their own weight. When that happens, all insurance covering anything less than catastrophic coverage needs to be cancelled and medicine and medical care thereafter need to be treated as a pure commodity. Elimination of all subsidies and patent protection for any medicine would also be requisite.

There would of course be a period of pure chaos while the market adjusts. Pulling the massive government price supports out from under the medical and pharmaceutical industries will be catastrophic in effect and of course a lot of useless medical bureacrats will be thrown out of work. Probably would take a year for prices to come into anything resembling equilibrium.

But, once that period ended you would see medical greatly reduced and some medicines would likely fall in price by 90% or more.

In one way the new part D medicine coverage actually helps, in that it will hasten the day of Medicares utter collapse. I welcome that day with open arms.

3rd cent:

Hopefully, the following true story will exemplify why destroying US socialized medicine won't happen like that, Mark B.

My dad's on Medicare. From his perspective, it's giving him cheap meds...

HE DOESN'T CARE WHY OR FROM WHERE THE MONEY COMES - AS LONG AS HE DOESN'T HAVE TO PAY MUCH.

I can only assume that most people in the system have the same mentality. Therefore, when the "period of pure chaos" comes, people won't stand for sound logic--they'll clamor for ANY government solution that restarts the practice of medical socialism, and I can guarantee that it won't be a pretty one. It will most likely involve steepening taxation and heavier federal borrowing until we end up far worse off than people under the psychotic German system described in the above article. And don't worry, ADW, there will be plenty of brand-new insane regulations to go around! Welcome to the Banana Republic of America.

Gradualism, on the other hand, offers far more hope for long-term change. Repealing regs, cutting subsidies, promoting self-determination for patients and doctors as opposed to unwanted mandates, etc. are done MEASUREDLY when done right, in order to avoid society-wide withdrawal symptoms from that most popular drug, socialism.

Time to bite the bullet and enslave all doctors and healthcard providers. How dare they leave the country or state or their careers! This will work great (e.g. the antebellum South), at least until all current health care providers die. Then we can depend on altruistic types or perform our own cancer surguries.

"There would of course be a period of pure chaos while the market adjusts. Pulling the massive government price supports out from under the medical and pharmaceutical industries will be catastrophic in effect and of course a lot of useless medical bureacrats will be thrown out of work. Probably would take a year for prices to come into anything resembling equilibrium."

How many deaths will you be responsible for in the meantime? If I dont take my anti seizure med, I will likely have a grandmal seizure and bite my own tongue off. My Chemo drugs cost 10,000 a bottle. They are, along wih my radiation treatments, my only chance at survival from the cancer I have. Your libertarian "solution" would kill me.

It's always young bucks in their 20's who are healthy as horses and havent had to see a doctor in 10 years who come up with this garbage. How about dealing with the real world in a manner so we dont appear to voters as being a bunch of heartless death dealers?

Tim -- I agree with you in this thought... and *am* a "young buck in my 20's". :)

Long story short, however: our current system needs to be revised. Heavily.

Of course, the first answer I can see is a strange one. Change the FDA standards into simple guidelines rather than absolute abolition.

That is: certain things retain the FDA "approval" -- but any action or drug that does not must label itself (in a commercial setting) as "not FDA approved" -- and those without the approval would be left to make it or break it on their own.

That's at least a step, and a feasible one.

Tim_West:

Actually, I am around 40. In good health at the moment, but you just never know, do ya. I have a relative on 28 different, yes that was 28, count em 28 different medications, ranging from diabetes related to anti-rejection medication, one of which is $2000.00 a month. So don't assume I don't know what I am talking about, or that I am without sympathy.

Unlike most people, and do gooder government bureacrats, I do not allow either sympathy or good intentions to cloud my judgement. Plenty of dead people in this world that got that way along the road of good intentions. The only goal is to free pharmaceuticals and medicine from the coercive effects of government. The market will take care of itself from there on out.

It is the government that is truly dealing death. Many thousands are dead do to needless FDA interference in the drug approval process and delays that can last up to ten years. Many more have died, while waiting in the web of government bureacracy. Socialism by its very nature equals ultimate death and destruction. Medicare and Medicaid are the ultimate epitomy of socialism, particularly of the National Socialist variety. I despise socialism in all its incarnations and disguises and I will not stop short of its absolute and utter distruction. Did it ever occur to you WHY your Chemo drugs cost $10,000 a bottle? Could it be, perchance, that the massive government distortion has driven the price to those levels. Did you ever consider that within perhaps days of pulling the socialist rug out from under the drug companies that bottle would likely cost you $100 or less? What is needed is a good shot of the free market to solve all our problems. Government only hurts and destroys and will always do so.

What I propose will not deprive you of your drugs. Indeed, it would give you freer and more unfeetered access than ever.

To the other posters:

I would not be adverse to the idea of gradual abolition. Trouble is, I don't think it could be done. Bureaucrats do not easily surrender ground they have previously gained. Trying to slowly dismember Medicare would likely be futile. The senior lobby and other lobbies would pitch a fit and then government would hand them another piece of the pie in the form of some new Medicare largesse.

Gradualism would be nice, would spare the shock, trouble is, I don't think it could be done. I do know Medicare is on the road to collapse and we need to strike when it does collapse to keep politicians from resurrecting the foul carcass into something even worse.

The scariest thing about this whole issue is that the "privatization" of healthcare is not only impractical ... it's misguided! As long as the "private industry" involved (Big Pharma, insurance companies, device manufacturers, hospitals, doctors, stockholders, etc.) is still mainly corporate Amerika -- with its paradigms of subsidy, collusion with government and political overlords -- the interlocking and incestuous hand of the State is always present.

If you want a truly horrifying overview of just how bad things are, and how few real options there are for moving out of it, read "Money-Driven Medicine" by Maggie Mahar, or go to the web channel I edit (http://medicalfreedom.isil.org), where I have attempted to "review" this book, in four parts concluding this weekend.

Bottom line: It is NOT as simple as saying "the market will handle it" ...

Mark B -

"What I propose will not deprive you of your drugs. Indeed, it would give you freer and more unfeetered access than ever".

No it would destroy the current system without having a new one in it's place. What you porpose is like removing saddam fom power and not having a system in place after he is gone.

No thanks. I'll go for actual study and understanding of how our systems work. Once we do that, we can fashion a better deal.

In theory, free market competition should tame health care inflation. In fact, Mahar demonstrates, when it comes to medicine, the traditional laws of supply and demand do not apply. Normally, when supply expands, prices fall. But in the health care industry, as the number and variety of drugs, devices, and treatments multiplies, demand rises to absorb the excess, and prices climb. Meanwhile, the perverse incentives of a fee-for-service system reward health care providers for doing more, not less.

I am living this system right now. The statements above are 100% spot on. Health care is not a widget, where normal laws of supply and demand work. Sick people dont react to those same laws like they would if they were buying a computer, and it's perverse to think they should.