Giving Capitalism a Try

FOR THOSE AMONG US Americans who do not like Obamacare, and there seem to be many, - even though Obamacare hasn't been around long enough for anybody to have any fair idea whether they like it - the question looms, if not Obamacare, then what? Socialized health care, but with a different format? No, never. The system the way it was before Obamacare, but with less socialism, and more capitalism? the system the way it was? My first choice would be a single payer system, like they have in Canada and Europe. Second choice? Obamacare. My third choice, but not lagging very far behind, and starting to gain ground, ::drum roll:: real, true blue free market capitalistic health care, meaning all aspects of health care, from insurance, to doctors, to prescriptions, to hospitals. Real, free market medicine all around, such as has never been seen in America. Fact is, that might be my first choice, real free market medicine. That means enough hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical corporations to have good old fashioned American free market competition. What we have historically had is just the opposite; we have had a virtual monoploy on medicine, by the extremely few and extremly wealthy powerful corporations, just like we have had in most other industries, including energy (oil) and transportation. When is the last time you saw your local doctors scrambling to advertise lower prices than his or her competitors? I'll give you a complete physical examination at the lowest price in town! Have you noticed any energetic ad campaigns by major pharmeceutical companies, claiming that their prices beat the other drug company's prices all to hell? No, you haven't, and you never will, unless we pass a lw requiring drug and insurance companies to split into two when they reach a certain size, and unless we educate more talented people to increase the doctor supply. Double the number of doctors, and double the number of insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies, and you have a beginning of capitalism. Rather than allowing the medical industry to control its own size, prices, and profits, let the American people do it. The American medical Association, the American insurance cartel, and the American pharmaceutical community do a great job of working together to control supply and demand. The only problem is, this isn't capitalism, becauuse it isn't competition. Its monopoly, or plutocracy, or whatever you want to calll it, but it most certainly isn't free market capitalism. Maybe, if Obamacare doesn't work - and bear in mind that it is far too early to determine whether Obamacare works, my conservative friends - then why don't we give capitalism a try?