American Health Care and the Fortress Mentality

“For decades America’s health care debate has pitted Left against Right, federal against state, public against private. All sides, however, have shared a similar, inhibiting mindset—an excessive aversion to risk and deference to medical insiders—instead of stressing the ideal goal of better health care for more people at lower cost on a continuous basis.

A new study published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University shows how this “Fortress”-like mentality has limited innovation in health care, constraining medical advances and raising costs. Shifting to a “Frontier” approach—one that tolerates risk and opens the field to other participants and disciplines—would bring to health care the kinds of creativity seen in many other fields, such as information technology.

The study illustrates these ideas in part through a set of unconventional characters, including a Hollywood actress who figured out how to stop Nazis from jamming American torpedo controls, a small-town doctor who pioneered stem-cell therapy, an injured carpenter and a puppet-maker who saw $40,000 prosthetic hands and produced a workable alternative that costs less than $50, a dying rodeo enthusiast who successfully battled the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and—on the other side of the coin—a well-meaning educator who helped destroy African-American medical education.” - Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care, Robert Grabayes, George Mason University

Link to the summary:

http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/Graboyes-Fortress-Frontier-summary_0.pdf


Link to the entire paper:

http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/Graboyes-Fortress-Frontier_0.pdf


　

　

　


　

The Socialized Medicine Scheme: disregarding public opinion

People can not believe Obama , Pelosi and their progressive followers are ramming through their particular version of health-care reform when public opinion is standing at 75% to "start over".

Maybe this helps explain their attempt to ram through legislation against overwhelming public opinion opposition. Roscoe Pound (early progressive): “ …in the hands of a progressive and enlightened caste whose conceptions are in advance of the public and whose leadership is bringing popular thought to a higher level”. (1)

Hence Obama, Pelosi and their progressive followers are coming right out of the progressive playbook and actually believe they are “enlightened” and the “concept” of their enlightened view of health-care is “in advance of the public”.

'Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told an audience yesterday that it was necessary to pass the health care bill to see what was in it away from what she termed the "fog of Washington".' (2)

In other words, Pelosi is stating that her enlightened concept of health-care is what is good for you hence merely pass the bill basically sight-unseen and trust Pelosi as you'll like it.

A final point is that Obama and Pelosi are benevolently giving the public 72 hours to read, digest, understand, and make an informed decision on a 3,000 page bill written in legal jargon regarding a highly dynamic subject. It is a ridiculous notion that an informed decision can be made in 72 hours. Its a ridiculous notion that a 3,000 page bill should not be subject to a long debate regarding all the aspects of the bill.

(1) Roscoe Pound, "The Need of a Sociological Jurisprudence," The Green Bag, October 1907, pp. 611,612.

(2)http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/pelosi-pass-the-health-care-bill-to-find-out-whats-in-it/