The Hodge in Exile, Part Four – Reflections on Health Care

I’ll be returning home tomorrow.  I have to say that being a dad makes it more difficult to travel frequently. I miss the little guy (now almost eleven months old). I hate the fact that I’m missing new developments, new words, a more confident approach to cruising (that first unassisted step without a face plant is coming soon!), and valuable bonding time.

I’m watching the Democratic ego stroke (ahem, I mean debate) on CNN tonight. It’s a shame that everything I’ve heard so far is based on a pipe dream called “Universal Health Care.” Restricting a free market system with subsidies that either divert funding from other programs or force our government to raise taxes places pressure on our already wounded economy. Why should the productive members of our economy have more tax burden placed on them to place artificial controls on something that is functioning according to the law of supply and demand? The place to start on reform is to relax licensing and patent law, allowing generic drugs to hit the market sooner. Allow a reasonable time for companies to recoup the cost of developing drugs, then allow said drugs to be licensed to stimulate competition in the pharmaceutical sector. Likewise, reform your laws governing litigation surrounding the medical profession. Make it more difficult to bring frivolous law suits against doctors who legitimately don’t make mistakes and see the price of malpractice insurance go down, thus reducing costs to the end-user further.