Your Doctor Is Not in: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare

The current debate over health care reform has created a brisk market for information, and Orient, the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, here weighs in with the conservatives on health care reform, arguing that ``a free market would bring the best possible medical care to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible cost.'' The book makes the case for freedom of enterprise and inquiry in medicine--a system under which the ``heart of medicine is the relationship of one doctor to one patient.'' Orient believes that the medical profession is already over-administered and controlled, like a ``patient who suffers from polypharmacy.'' She predicts the further enslavement of physicians should a nationalized system emerge. Her descriptions of the British and German models of socialized medicine (both of which permit private insurance and private medicine) and the Canadian system are used to point out the flaws in state-run medicine. According to the author, the ultimate result of most reform plans would be ``the destruction of our traditional forms of medical practice.'' Whether or not you agree that health care is a privilege and not a right, and that the proposed changes will mean less freedom, this thought-provoking defense of private medicine should be read by all interested in the health care dialogue. (May)