What are you talking about when you say prosecution?
You don't understand the word?
You know charged with a crime etc...
Do you think that a cosmetic nose job is normal medical care?
I never said anything that implied that I think any such thing.
You said "If there is additional coverage, then it is would be well defined for things like cosmetic surgery."
I replied with "So you would not allow additional coverage for normal medical care?", which clearly shows that I accept the distinction between cosmetic surgery (or at least elective cosmetic surgery) and normal health care. You would seem to allow private insurance for cosmetic surgery, I'm asking would you allow it for normal health care. It seems to me you would not, but it isn't clear, so I asked.
You are protecting a system that does not provide results commensurate with its costs.
That's questionable. The cost is massive, but so is the benefits. I would say that the benefits are higher than the costs, but perhaps not the extent that we would normally expect. Usually consumer surplus is a larger factor than it is in medical care. We frequently are not getting the level of surplus that we would want.
Your desire to protect this system is very anti-capitalist.
That's bizarre. The system isn't a capitalist system, its mixed, but preferring even a a mixed system over a purely socialist system, isn't anti-capitalist, but rather anti-socialist.
What do you mean a trusted outside lab? Trusted by whom? How would a consumer know if XYZ is 'trusted' and ABC is bought and paid for by the drug company?
Something like Underwriters Laboratories (except the testing would have to be more extensive with drugs, than with electronic or mechanical devices).
They would live or die on their reputation. There is no reason to think that they could not do as good of job as the government, perhaps even a better one. Its not like the FDA is perfect, it approves drugs that aren't both safe and effective, and it doesn't approve drugs that are (certainly not in a timely manner).
There would probably only be a few of these organizations (both the testing and the reputational effects would involve economies of scale), so its not like you would have to have a large laundry list of organizations to deal with.
And if one of these organizations starts regularly acting in a dishonest or corrupt way, it DEAD. No one will ever trust it again, bankruptcy is just a step away.
OTOH the FDA can screw up a lot, and as a government organization its like the energizer bunny, it keeps going, and going... |
