by kcdc

Created on: June 04, 2008

The consumer is the best fit to control the cost of health care. Unfortunately people will always need health care and that is the only reason that the Government would be better fit to reduce the overall health care costs. Consumer control is by far the most effective and efficient way to reduce health care cost because with out the "consumer" to purchase things there would not be any demand for those items. Leading back to a simple supply and demand equation. If you feel that your health insurance is too high, you need to express your concerns to your health insurance company. If you have done that and you still feel that nothing is being done, you need to think about changing health insurance company's. Again this logic goes back to supply and demand. If you want lower gas prices, avoid the largest petroleum producers at all costs, they will loose business and in turn have to lower prices to get people in the door. Once they lower prices others will need to lower their prices to compete in the market. The same rule applies to health care. If you feel that the costs are too high, call around, see what kind of a break you may be able to get by visiting a smaller local doctor rather than going to the biggest hospital in the city. Just like the gas, we need it! That does not mean though that we should not try to get the best price we can on that necessary service or product. The government may need to step in a little and help nudge the market in the right direction, just as I feel they should do with many other consumer staples. But a nudge is all that they need to do. Getting the government too involved in the market will then start to create a very scary situation. For example if the Government takes control of health care and decides to "lower the cost of health care", this may lead to cutting hours available to doctors or wages for nurses, the most vital and necessary instruments of this industry. By lowering the wages and cutting hours think of what would happen... A doctor is in an operating room in the middle of open heart surgery, it's your mother or father on the table, now that the government has taken control of health care, that doctor can only put in a certain amount of hours per week or per day. His time for the week is up in the middle of the surgery, he puts down the knife and walks away from the table with your mother or father wide open. Who knows if there will be another doctor coming in to finish the procedure because the hospital may have "spent" all of their alloted "doctor time" on previous patients that day or week. Now your parent dies because some bureaucrat decided XYZ hospital is only allowed a certain number of doctor hours per week, for the sake of "controlling health care costs". In conclusion the Government is not best fit to control our health care costs, we the people are, we just need to be informed and act collectively. Tell all of your friends and family, they need to be informed too!

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