Ron Paul on Health Care
There are a couple of interview videos on YouTube where Ron Paul talks with a representative of the Kaiser Family Foundation about his views on health care, a subject near and dear to my heart. As I listened to him talk, it was like I was hearing my own words and my own thoughts.
In Part I, Congressman Paul talks about how free markets have lowered costs and increased options in areas like computers and telephone service, while health care costs have skyrocketed. I have made those comparisons on many occasions and it is so obvious to me that I don’t understand why people can’t see it.
He also talks about how corporations, government programs, and barriers to entry have increased costs. Allowing doctors to protect their turf denies patients other cheaper but equally safe and effective options. If a nurse can do something as well as a doctor, why should we have to pay a doctor’s high price when somebody else can do the job for less? Billions could be saved if patients didn’t have to go to a doctor for things they could do themselves or that could be done just as well by a qualified technician.
I’ve often asked why patients can’t do things like write their own prescriptions if they know how to do it. I can think of more than one case where I wanted to get a drug only available by prescription and had done the necessary research on it. I had to go in and pay my doctor for a visit. He’s usually given me the prescription I wanted because I’ve never asked for anything unreasonable, and the times he hasn’t given it to me, he should have. Furthermore, most pharmacists know much more about drugs than doctors, so they could often be a better and cheaper resource for getting the right prescription.
He sees a migration away from government programs and wants to encourage younger people to move toward Medical Savings Accounts and away from government entitlements. One advantage of a free market that Dr. Paul notes is that patients are free to try other forms of medicine, like holistic medicine for example, because they are controlling the money.
In Part II, he talks about major medical or catastrophic insurance. He rightly maintains that what we have now is really a pre-paid health care system that encourages people to use the system because they feel like they’ve paid for it or somebody else has paid for it. Major medical insurance is cheap and should only cover major illnesses or accidents.
He also talks about Hurricane Katrina and FEMA.
I’m totally in agreement with the views he stated in this interview.
Another change that follow from putting patients in charge of their health care is that individuals would take better care of themselves if they had to pay for basic medical care out-of-pocket. As it stands now, there is little incentive for people to take care of themselves or to spend responsibly when it comes to health care. With shopping mall medicine as I like to call it, consumers would seek out highest quality product for the best prices as they do in everything else.
His basic message boils down to putting health care back into the hands of patients and their doctors as well as other health care professionals and taking control away from corporations and the government.
This is the first time I’ve listened to Ron Paul speak at any length on any one issue and I found him smart and I must admit even sexy. He talks about issues as a problem solver and views problems from many different angles. There’s a quality, an intellectual integrity to his discussion that is totally lacking in the other presidential candidates. There’s a lack of arrogance and the insincerity that is the hallmark of all professional politicians. He’s not out to save people, but to give them the ability to save themselves, and that’s good medicine. What other person running for office has the honesty and the guts to say there’s no entitlement to health care at the expense of others?
It should also be noted, that as a physician (OB/GYN), Dr. Paul has a perspective on health care that none of the other candidates possess.
Interview with Ron Paul on Health Care - Part I.
Interview with Ron Paul on Health Care - Part II.