When I was a child, my parents (in the so called middle class) were eminently capable of paying a doctor for every day, non catastrophic illness or injury.
When I got sick with childhood illnesses, the doctor would come to our house and give me a soothing little shot in the behind. His presence and involvement in my “healthcare” (à la the principles of Hippocrates) was always encouraging.
The only time we used insurance was when my sister broke her arm.
Then, somehow, the behemoth grew, the federal government got deeply involved through sundry medicare this and medicaid that, insurance companies started seeing big $ on the horizon, HMO’s evolved, “medicine” started costing an arm and a leg, doctors started exploiting government programs with egregious charges and performing sundry unnecessary “tests” to justify and pay for expensive technological equipment…
…and the whole thing spiraled out of whack.
For some insight into the federal government insinuating itself even further into “healthcare” than it has already, I turn to the words of the inimitable P.J. O’Rourke…
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.
