On American Health Care Reform

Up front I want to admit that I'm not up to speed on the details of the governments new health care program but one doesn't need to know the details to know that will turn out to be a bureaucratic nightmare that will end up being counter productive. I do. however, understand the the President's motivation for pushing this program through. Health care cost in America are truly high and an unbearable burden for many Americans. So its hard to argue against the idea that something had to be done.

Recently I watched a video of an interview that Warren Buffet gave a while back. At one point in the interview Mr. Buffit was asked his opinion of Obamma's health care initiative. Paraphrasing, Mr Buffit said if Plan A is to do nothing and Plan B is the President's health care package, he would opt for Plan B; but what he would really like would be a Plan C, a plan to reduce the cost of health care in America. he pointed out that health care cost in America are equal to 17% of GDP while in the rest of the world health care cost were only 9% of GDP. Also, he noted that, on a per capita basis, America had far fewer medical doctors and medical facilities than in these other countries. Unfortunately, the interviewer didn't pursue the subject further. I would have loved to have asked Mr. Buffit a few questions.

When Mr. Buffit refers to the rest of the world, I have to assume he is talking about the developed world where in most if not all of these countries have socialized health care. So how is it possible that in these countries spend less of their GDP on health care than the United States? Essentially, what Mr. Buffit said was that the problem with health care costs in America is a problem of supply and demand; we have a high demand for medical services and, because there are too few doctors and facilities, health care costs are high. In other words, there is not enough competition in the American health care industry.

So why are there too few doctors and medical facilities in America? In my opinion, the cause for these deficiencies can be laid at the feet of the AMA, the American Medical Association. Although the AMA has consistently denied it, they have for many years had monopolistic control over accreditation of medical schools and in the the number of new applicants that are accepted into medical school each year. Its in their self interest to do so; keep competition down keep income up. To be sure, this debate over the AMA has flared up many times in modern American history to no avail. And I believe it would be useless to continue trying to get the AMA to change their ways.

So what is my point? My point is that America does not need the AMA's approval to solve this problem. If we can agree that the problem is too few doctors and too few medical facilities, then let's do something about it. With private funds (preferable) or government funds (not so good) or with a combination of private and government funds let's fund, staff and equip more medical schools and start producing more doctors and let's build more medical facilities. If we did this, American health care cost would tumble and we wouldn't need a bureaucratic high cost government program that will only end up costing America more than it cost now.

Enough said.

Sense or nonsense?