Quote Originally Posted by Pancho Villa View Post

Rather than more controls, what the American people and their elected representatives need to understand is that controls have been tried - here and in almost every other country on earth - and demonstrated to be total failures at their stated objectives. It is controls that have been given the chance, and controls that must be discarded, if we want to have affordable health care.
Pancho, your posts are always well thought out and informative. I think the solution to the problem is to get the government and the lawyers out of healthcare. Less regulation in general would be a good thing to drive prices down.

One way we could do this is to move to a system of using insurance coverage only for more serious health issues. For example, bypass surgery, chemotherapy, and organ transplants are the types of procedures that insurance should cover. My kid needing antibiotics for an ear infection is something which could be paid out of pocket.

Certain classes of drugs and medicines should be completely re-classified so they can be purchased over the counter without prescription. I'll give you a personal example. I have psoriasis, a skin condition. It is easily treated with topical steriods and Dovonex, a synthetic form of vitamin D. My deratologist always prescribes the same meds as they work well for me. I am well informed as to how exactly they are to be used. Clobex, the steroid comes in a 4oz pump spray bottle. Dovonex comes in a tube about the size of a tube of toothpaste. Want to guess what the retail price is? $450 and $750 respectively. No shit....

If these were available without prescription, I guarantee you they would be considerably cheaper. The only reason these things are as costly as they are is due to insurance being billed for them rather than the consumer directly. If the drug company can get that kind of coin from the insurance company, what incentive do they have do bring costs down?