It's called "Managed Care," and it was put in place by government meddling in the first place. Before that, we had the unions demanding free health care (you know, things like alcohol treatment, cancer treatments, mental health counseling services, etc.), which spilled over to the general population.

Consumers of health care have basically two choices in today's market: 1) have someone else pay for their health care, or 2) pay for it themselves.

In the first case, when someone else gives you something, and you are not concerned with the cost of that thing, you are not concerned about using it, or caring for it. E.g., if you were given a Cadillac, and told that you would receive a new one each year for the rest of your life, guaranteed, what would be the incentive for you to take care of that car? None, whatsoever.

In the second case, if you had the wherewithal to purchase the car yourself, and knew you would have to make it last for 10 years before buying a new one; you'd make sure it gets all of its required periodic maintenance, and stay in as good a shape as you can keep it.

The second scenario is FREE MARKET. The first is not. Here's what we could do to make it a true free market:

1. Rather than give employees health insurance, give them a health savings account (or medical savings account) - these are available through most insurance agents now.
   
2. encourage them to get a catastrophic plan that would cover a) hospitalization, b) extraordinary treatment (like cancer, or dialysis), and c) long term care.

You would go into your doctor's office and say - "look doc, I don't have insurance anymore, so I'm going to be paying you with this Health Care Debit card each time I see you. You don't have to bill me, or insurance. Can I get a discount on my office visit, if I do it this way?" The doctor would, of course, say YES, because it means less work for his staff. You then would pay for any office visits, prescriptions, etc. out of your account with your debit card (which is only accepted at medical providers). Any money that you don't spend, due to maintaining your health (remember the car example?), could be, every so years, be transferred into a retirement account of your choosing.

This gives you free market choices - get care, or not; choose own provider; don't use certain services. A man or woman who eats right and exercises will stand a better chance of living a long time and having lots of money to enjoy in their retirement.

this is free market.

All joking aside, why do we sometimes (not everyone does) look for second opinions, but not second quotes. In a free market, the provider sets the price of a good or service. In health care, most often the price is set arbitrarily, and mostly on what the insurance coverage will pay.

In a truly free market, where we pay our own basic care, we could shop around. If a doctor said to us, "you need x-rays," it would be easy enough to call around and get price quotes on a set of x-rays. You get 3 quotes, in writing, and you decide how much you want to pay.

What about pharmaceuticals? Same thing. Walmart currently offers some old-time generics for $4/prescription. Pretty good for folks with no health insurance, or whose insurance requires a $20 or $30 co-pay. I'd rather go and get the generic for $4 without using the insurance, than to pay the ridiculously high co-pay. How about you?

A truly free market would also allow us to bypass physicians when they are not needed. Most x-ray technicians are able to read most x-rays. If I go in and get an x-ray somewhere, the technician could tell me if my leg is broke or not. A physical therapist assistant could set my leg (it's usually them anyway, the doctor just gets the big money for looking at the x-ray and going, "hmmmm, uh huh, yep, whew, haven't seen one like this since Tommy Tucker fell out of that tree back in 1978..." For that he makes $100 or so.

Insurance has driven up cost in several ways: 1) provides more money for the providers, so they take it; 2) it requires billing, filing, diagnoses, etc., that requires more staff to do what one or two could do previously; 3) more people go to the doctor because they have visits covered in their plans.

One peripheral ways that health insurance prices are driven up is called parity. If someone was unwilling to take a look at my proposal for HSAs, at least set up a cafeteria style insurance plan. IOW, why should my insurance provider carry maternity on me when my wife is 50, and I am 49? The odds of us having a baby are slim to none. In addition, I don't drink, nor does my wife. Why do we need Substance Abuse Treatment on our health insurance?

We could cut costs significantly, if we would just allow the consumer to pick what he/she wants in the plan. The cost becomes more aligned with each person's needs. Overweight people might need the care of a dietician, where someone who exercises all the time may want more therapy services, like chiropractic, occupational or physical therapy, massage therapy, etc.

There's all sorts of things that a free market would help to do in the area of health care. As it stands now, we have a form of socialized medicine, where the bureaucrat works for an insurance company rather than the government. It is arguable as to which one is worse sometimes.

The problem is, if it were up to the Democrats, we'd all be working at Walmart, using government health insurance. We'd all be good little robots/citizens, paying our taxes and thanking the Clintons and Granholms for giving us so much.

By the way, for the Dumbocrats out there, Walmart started out as a mom-and-pop operation in Little Rock, AR. A certain governor of that state helped old Sam Walton get certain tax breaks so that he could expand. Sam gave big money to that governor's presidential campaigns, after supporting him for governor numerous times.

Do you know which Arkansas governor it was? Let me give you a hint - IT WASN'T HUCKABEE. Another hint? Okay, his wife is running for president. Ring any bells yet? No! Well, I guess I'm expecting too much from Dumbocrats. Here's my last hint: his initials are Bill Clinton. Can you guess now? NO!!

yet, while workers are paying more for health care (if they have to pay for it they'll be damn sure they have cancer before going to the hospital for checkup!), and earning less, the entire country's survivability hinges directly and solely on the masses buying, buying, buying, buying.