One of the most challenging and urgent domestic problems facing the United States is that of health care. With an estimated 36 million uninsured Americans, the crisis is one of immense proportion. Socialized medicine is the centerpiece of an ideological trend that is gaining an ever-increasing amount of both political and public support. Extreme socialization of health care, however, would create more problems than it would solve. In order to make affordable health care a realty, the government must enact legislation limiting the amount physicians can charge for a given procedure based on what it actually costs the doctor to provide the service and the cost of living index for the area in which he practices.

In the free market economy of the United States, the price of most products and services is determined by competition and the interaction of supply and demand. In the automotive industry, for example, rival companies compete against each other in an attempt to build the best car for the least amount of money. The consumer is then able to choose, from a wide variety of makes and models, the automobile he feels is the best value. Or, if he so desires, he can choose not to buy a new car at all making do with his present vehicle. The difference between this example and the health care industry is that both competition and demand are distorted because medical treatment is a necessity. The demand for the service of health care professionals is constant. Knowing this ,physicians are able to maintain fees which are artificially high.

In order to minimize the effects of the unchecked inflation of health care costs, the federal government must pass legislation which limits the amount a physician may charge for a given procedure. Price would be determined in accordance with the actual cost of the procedure and a variable cost of living index. How much a doctor could charge to perform an operation or test would be based on the expense of the equipment used, the amount of time taken to perform the procedure, and the difficulty of the procedure. The cost of living index would be based on the median income of the physician's clientele, and would be calculated so that he would remain in the top 10 percent of the area in which he provides services. This process would provide affordable health care while keeping the incentive intact, in the form of profit, for those considering becoming a doctor.

Although some maintain that the only way in which to provide affordable health care is to completely socialize the process. This approach would, in fact, cause greater difficulties than those which are currently facing the American public. The number of personnel required to operate a national health care system for the 250 million people of the United States would create a bureaucracy so large that receiving even the most minor of medical assistance would take months. Like many other programs, socialized health care would cater to the wealthy and influential who are capable of bypassing red tape rather than those who are poor and unimportant and who must follow proper channels. So, in fact, the system would penalize those it was originally designed to protect. Further, when a high ranking official of the national government was asked about the idea of a national health care system, he was quoted as saying that the system "would have the efficiency of the post office with the compassion of the IRS."

Although this comment was no doubt intended for humor, it does, in fact, bring into focus some very real drawbacks that would result from the creation and implementation of a national health care system. It is almost unimaginable to think of the myriad of bureaucratic entanglements that would result from an undertaking the size of a national health care program. Perhaps hundreds of people a year would die as a result of waiting for the proper paperwork to clear before an operation could be performed. With little or no incentive for profit, a large number of health care workers would lack motivation in their work.

From this it is easy to see that a national health care system would not be beneficial, rather it would be disastrous. This does not even include the unbelievable increases in taxes that would result from a program of this scale. With the cost of health care rising at an ever-increasing rate, some type of government control must be taken if America is to avoid a crisis of an even greater magnitude. The most logical course of action would be to limit the price physicians could charge by creating national standards adjusted for the cost of living in the area in which they practice.

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