Berry’s type of practice gives his patients the opportunity to decide what kind of care is right for them.
The average charge to his customers for a routine visit is $35, which is considered to be much lower than other doctors. While several liberals spend hours upon hours discussing possible solutions about medical insurance for the lower-income families, Berry is making a difference by helping uninsured people every day.
Years ago when there was much less government involvement, the U.S. health care system was the envy of the world. Costs of medical care were kept down because most Americans paid for their care with cash and used insurance only in catastrophic situations.
The creation of HMOs is the result of government mandates, not free-market demand. HMOs and more government involvement don’t hold the answer to the health care crisis.
The best medical care would be one delivered by the free market, which would keep costs down by deterring competition and financial incentives. Patients who pay for their own health care service out of pocket hold the power to negotiate lower costs with their doctors.
LewRockwell.com May 5, 2004
I commend Dr. Berry for taking these admirable actions to see people without any involvement from insurance companies.
In a past article I wrote about how the devastating costs of health insurance have left 75 million people without health coverage. There is clearly no question that we have an ever-increasing medical insurance crisis in this country.
Until a radical change in the paradigm occurs, health care costs will continue to escalate.
The traditional media will, of course, claim that the solution is to levy some new tax to provide these health care benefits to those who cannot afford them. This is a prescription for disaster. Another socialized medical system will only repeat the Medicare catastrophe we already have.
The solution is to change the entire system.
Unless we change the system, drug companies will continue to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from our economy while providing virtually no benefit--other than making themselves richer.
Our country will become increasingly unable to support such an expense without major sacrifices by millions of people. The solution is to redirect the spending to care that will build the health of the country and provide people with the energy to be more productive. The extra productivity would theoretically create more than enough additional wealth to pay for all the health care that we would need.
When our nation is focused on health achievement, rather than disease treatment, the total cost of providing medical care would dramatically decline, because healthy people require fewer medical resources.