FLASHREPORT

While I am in partial agreement with your thesis, I am having difficulty understanding one statement. You claim that health care is a heavily governmnet regulated service, forcing consumer prices to rise. Can you please give me a few examples of where government has regulated health care costs. Do we have prior approval of health insurance premiums such as that which has been imposed on the stable auto insurance market? Do we have government setting physician reiombursement rates for services rendered, along the lines that private HMO's netgotiate rates with health providers? Do we have governmnet control or negotiated "kick-backs" on the bulk purchase of pharmaceuticals that are agreed to between PBMs and all the major drug manufacturers? Are hospital corporations restricted by the state in regard to how they can recoup the costs of charity care rendered to uninsured patients who show up in their emergency rooms?
Has government restricted hospitals, doctors, medical groups and all the other health care providers from outsourcing (via internet technology)work like reading scans, and lab tests to technicians who work in lower cost labor markets in India and Asia?
Could you please enumerate the specific ways in which governmnet has intervened in the provision of health care (other than using the purchasing power of large pension funds such as CalPERS in negotiating beneficiary health insurance premiums), in a manner which has forced up the costs of health care, or at least prevented those costs from stabilizing, let alone decreasing? Thank you.

I met Mr. Foy several years before he was a supervisor, and he impressed me then. Great article, and good points.

In regard to Leslie Spahnn's comment, the article talked about one glaring government intervention that raises our costs: the mandate for California policies to include treatment for all sorts of extra items. Denying us choices and freedom is something the California Legislature is VERY good at.