There are still many questions to be answered about the healthcare reform bill. Perhaps the most important is our leadership in developing new treatments and procedures that save lives or improve lives. The Cato Institute in Washington believes that this is more important than controlling the cost and covering the uninsured. Its studies found that the USA is the leader in three out of four areas of innovation — basic science, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Cato claims it found, in general, that Americans tend to receive more new treatments than any other nation in the world.
Cato argues that policy makers should consider the impact of reform proposals on innovation. For example, Cato says, proposals that increase spending on diagnostics and therapeutics could encourage more innovation. But, it claims that expanding price controls, government health care programs, and health insurance regulation, could have just the opposite effect by making it too expensive for American medical researchers to do their jobs. There will be other areas of the healthcare reform legislation that will need to be studied as well to make sure it measures up to the best care in the world which we’ve had in the past.
Could that be why America spends so much of its gross domestic product on healthcare? Maybe we have the money to pay for the latest innovations and choose to do so. For without good health, life is much more difficult. But even in the face of health problems, many Americans are brave and face that challenge, overcome their difficulty, and are outstanding examples to others. Still, most of us would prefer to avoid the difficulty if possible. Isn’t that what freedom is all about?
This is Carl Ramsey and that’s Another View of the News.
Let us know how God is blessing you! Please share your comments below.