How's Your Health?

Surveys still show that Americans consider "health care" one of the biggest issues they want the state and federal governments to address.  As usual, we're doing as we've been indoctrinated and expecting government to "solve" a problem before we've even established what the problem IS.  To that end, let us define the problem, and see if that doesn't lead to some parameters of the solution. 

1. First and most importantly, health care IS NOT A  RIGHT.  It never can be.   Neither  I nor any government has  the right to force you to pay for my health care, or to tell the doctor he must give me health care for free.  EVERY existing or proposed government health plan is some variation of these two wrongs, and they don't make a right.
   
   
2. There is NO CRISIS in health care.  We have problems, mostly with cost.  We have sob stories that the media and politicians like to paint as the norm.  They aren't.  The vast majority-- 85% or more-- of Americans have good health care and are satisfied with it.
   
   
3. Let us be clear that a lack of health insurance does not constitute a lack of care.  "Giving" everybody insurance or making it  mandatory does not improve health care one iota.  It's  just taking one more freedom (and responsibility)  from people.   One-size-fits-all (government plan) insurance is even worse.
   
   
4. The fact that life expectancy and infant mortality are higher in the US than in some countries with socialized medicine is largely irrelevant.  People in New Jersey don't live as long as people in North Dakota.  It's the same "health care system" but different lifestyles, environments, etc.  It's apples and oranges, not proof that their system is better than ours.
   
   
5. No government, corporation or individual has ever managed, for long, to disobey the law of supply and demand.  You cannot get out of a health care system anything that you do not pay for, somewhere, somehow.   Some of those "somehows" can be  highly undesirable.  If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see how much it costs when it's "free."
   
   
6. Government health care programs including Congress, federal employees, the VA,  Medicare, Medicaid and MNCARE, currently consume between 30% and 45% of all health care, yet prices continue to rise and we still have complaints about care.  If government-run health care WAS the answer,  it should already be obvious within these programs.  It's not.    

It seems to me the solution is obvious.  We could cut the cost of health care by 50% or more if we just got most government regulations OUT of it.   

Many of those  who now cannot afford insurance could then buy it for themselves, and the cost of government-provided health insurance would drop drastically, saving these programs (maybe) from their otherwise- inevitable collapse.  What's strange about this prescription is that it would also IMPROVE the quality of care, by focusing it on the health of the patient rather than on government rules.  Governments seem determined to "solve" this problem, but to really do so would require admitting  that government CAUSED the problem in the first place. 

More government control is not only not the right answer, it's very much the wrong one.