Health Care

Medical Regulation Piled on Medical Regulation

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 1997

President Clinton is continuing his piecemeal but relentless drive toward federal control of health care in the United States. Rebuffed by the American people and the Congress when he went for the Big Reform in 1993, he has decided that what he couldn't force us to swallow all at once he will have us ...

Good Samaritan Laws Are a Bad Idea

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1997

Tragedy often spawns new, ill-conceived laws. A good rule of thumb would be to avoid new legislation that is inspired by incidents involving the death or injury of beloved people. Despite good intentions, such laws will turn out to be mistakes. Legislate in haste, repent in leisure. The death of Princess Diana quickly prompted calls ...

Recall the Government Meat Inspectors

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 1997

The record recall of hamburger meat from the Hudson Foods plant in Nebraska should prompt us to ask whether the government should be certifying the safety of America's food supply. That may come as a shock. Doesn't the E. coli-contaminated beef show that we badly need government inspection? ...

The Creeping Takeover of Medical Care

by Sheldon Richman July 31, 1997

President Clinton favors barring health-insurance companies from using genetic testing to determine whom they will insure. If that position is enacted into law, it will be one more step toward what he has been aiming at since he came into office: a government takeover of medical care. Why shouldn't health underwriters use the results of ...

Should We Be Thankful for the FDA?

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1997

The television anchorman presented the news in an excited tone: "The Food and Drug today approved use of a new laser technology that will replace the drill at the dentist's office." According to the story, most patients tested with the new laser device needed no pain killer. The announcement ...

Smoke If You Want, and Pay for It

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1997

Tobacco has become a four-letter word. The cigarette companies are getting it from all sides. The federal Food and Drug Administration wants to regulate tobacco as a drug. State governments are suing to recover Medicare money spent on elderly people with tobacco-related illnesses. Heirs of long-time ...

Lessons from Your Fax Machine

by Karen Selick July 1, 1996

Have you ever heard someone ask: "How did we ever get along in the days before we had fax machines?" Think back. Ten years ago, most people had never heard of fax machines. They had just been invented. They were enormous clunky things, costing thousands of dollars, producing fading copies on that awful, curling thermal paper. Their usefulness was ...

The Ramp to Hell

by Karen Selick May 1, 1996

Perhaps the people who first dreamed up Ontario's Human Rights Code had good intentions, but as the old saying goes, that's what the road to hell is paved with. A recent decision of a Board of Inquiry shows just how far we've travelled down that road. The case involved a disabled woman who uses a ...

A Free Market in Human Organs

by Ron Brown February 1, 1996

The liver transplant performed on former baseball great Mickey Mantle last year gives us an opportunity to review and challenge the statist notion that it is perfectly fine for an individual to donate a human organ to another person but sinister and evil, not to mention illegal, to sell it for profit. Recall that ...

The Right to Self-Treatment

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 1995

Over the last year or so, much has been said about the right to health care. The advocates of government management of the health-care system believe that everyone should be able to obtain the services of doctors and related practitioners regardless of ability to pay. That is what has fueled the push by the ...

The Government’s Smoke Screen for Health Nazism

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 1994

Since in our era of health Nazism, it is an ideological requirement to state whether one is "politically correct" on various issues, let me be up-front. I am a smoker — both cigarettes and a pipe — and I enjoy them immensely. I used to run in 10-K races, and I used to run seven-minute ...

The Real Free-Market Approach to Health Care, Part 3

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 1994

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 The only solution to America's health-care crisis is to end, not reform, governmental intervention into economic activity. What would this entail? A way of life in which people would be free: to do whatever they want, so long as their conduct is peaceful and does not intrude, in some direct way, ...