The way I see it, in the beginning God created doctors, patients and drugs. Doctors mostly gave poor people the same treatment as rich people, because God made doctors kindly, gentle folk.
The cost of treatment per visit was the same as the cost of a can of beans. And God saw that it was good.
Then man created front rooms to treat patients and Model A Fords to visit them. The cost of treatment per visit became two cans of beans.
Then man created waiting rooms, nurses, hospitals and equipment. The cost of treatment became four cans of beans per visit.
Then man created World War II with wage and price controls. This caused employers to offer health care insurance, which required buildings full of workers with no connection to medicine. These workers got salaries, benefits and retirement. The cost of treatment became 20 cans of beans.
Then man invented a horde of lawyers, some of whom were known as ambulance chasers and bloodsuckers, who became fabulously wealthy by suing doctors.
Doctors bought lawsuit insurance at enormous expense to pay the bloodsucking lawyers and support the new horde of legal insurance workers. The cost of treatment went up to 1,000 cans of beans per visit.
Then man invented state government agencies to see that poor people got as much treatment as rich people. This larger horde of administrators and state bureaucrats required their own salaries, medical care, fringe benefits and retirement plans. The cost, including tax money, went up to 10,000 cans of beans per visit.
Then man invented medical fraud. Since they were using people”s tax money, patients lost interest in the cost of treatment.
Fraud, and the new horde of state workers required to investigate fraud, drove the cost up to 20,000 cans of beans per visit.
Then man invented Medicare and Medicaid which, with its regiment of bureaucrats, at federal as well as all state levels, multiplied all the other expenses. The cost went up to a million cans of beans per visit.
Then Obama created Obamacare in his own image.
I predict that this will involve an army of bureaucrats and enforcers larger than the U.S. military to tell doctors what they aren”t going to do and patients what they”re not going to get. Each state, county, city, town and hamlet will create a legion of enforcers to help federals expose and punish cheating doctors.
I think the cost in beans will be measured in megatons per cubic light year.
A can of beans, with little government help, will still cost the amount of a can of beans.
Randy Ridgel
Kelseyville
