Health Care Cronyism: A Tribute

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Health Care Cronyism: Special Interests Don't Care About Your Health Care

Sam Patterson | 08/15/2012

In the discussion about the future of our healthcare system, we should make sure not to forget about the impact cronyism has in the industry. When government has a heavy influence in an industry, as they do with healthcare, special interests are able to use some of that political influence to their advantage.

The healthcare industry is rife with examples of cronyism. While much of the industry thrives because people genuinely desire medical services, there is also more than a little cronyism occurring behind the scenes. Much of this cronyism takes the form of people trying to shut down competing services, leaving consumers with fewer options and potentially higher prices to pay. Here are some examples:

• Pharmaceutical companies lobbied the government aggressively while the recent health care changes were being debated. In a three month period during the debate the industry spent $40 million in lobbying to ensure a few favorable outcomes, such as no drug importation from Canada. This prevents domestic companies from having to compete in a more challenging market by working harder to serve consumers.

• In 2007 the Governor of Texas signed an executive order mandating that girls in the state get an immunization from HPV. A mandate is controversial in and of itself, but it was especially so in this case because the Governor’s former Chief of Staff was now a lobbyist for the company producing the mandated vaccine. The company was also a donor to the governor’s campaign.

• The Connecticut Dental Commission recently ruled that teeth-whitening services cannot be provided by anyone but a licensed dentist. Even products that could be applied by the consumer at home are not allowed to be applied at salons or spas unless a licensed dentist happens to work there. This shields dentists from a potential new competitor, protecting their monopoly position.

• While many mothers want to deliver their children more naturally outside of hospitals and at reduced cost, they often cannot find midwives available to help. This is because in many states midwives are not allowed to deliver babies unless they are registered nurses. These restrictions often go back decades, but many modern midwives feel that the restrictions are still in place today because the medical establishment is lobbying to keep out the competition. This problem isn’t unique to America either.

Cronyism harms society by allowing decisions to be made by political connections instead of the voluntary interactions of individuals. Something as important as healthcare should be directed by the patient  who knows his own best interests, 
Over Riding Treatment Refusals, How Much Process Is Due?instead of interest groups lobbying the government to keep out their competition or force people to use their product. If we focus on upholding economic freedom instead of allowing this type of cronyism, our healthcare decisions will better reflect our own needs instead of those of the cronies.



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San Francisco

People all over the world are being Brain Damaged, driven into permanent psychotic or semi psychotic depressive states, crippled and killed left and right to peddle dope which cures Absolutely Nothing, based upon the Political Beliefs of these three lying, delusional assholes.

Carl Jung
Sigmund Freud
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Take a bow, Mental Health, you're accomplishing everything America's enemies could ever have wished for in their wildest dreams, without costing them a cent.

Video courtesy of The Chrony Chronicles.