Editing 79-01-A7 (section)

= Patent Medicine II =

<TABLE BORDER="0"><TR><TD WIDTH="60%" ROWSPAN="2">
=== Transcript ===
On the last broadcast I told of the Senate subcommittee that is
roadshowing the country under the pretense of holding hearings when
in truth it is campaigning to socialize medicine; and the taxpayers
are footing the bill for this sales trip.

Part of the sales pitch is based on how much medical costs are
increasing and how much they'll be in a few years if we don't adopt
a program of compulsory government medical care. Nothing is said,
however, about the cost now and in the future if we do adopt such a
scheme.

Health care now costs us about $150 billion a year. The Department of
Health, Education and Welfare -- even though it wants
government medicine -- has estimated that the Kennedy proposal would
add $80 billion to that the first year. Supporting this is the
evidence in all -- and let me emphasize all -- the nations in the world
which already have nationalized (that is socialized) health care. This
includes among others Canada, Britain, Sweden. In these latter two,
some kinds of care are being denied to people because of cost. This
denial takes the form of setting an age limit above which things such
as transplants won't be given. Patients are denied care if a disease
is too far advanced, reducing the odds of saving the patient. Several
thousand kidney patients in one of those countries die each year because
the cost of keeping them alive is too great. In other words, the medical
bureaucrats play God.

But we have evidence close at hand of the role government intervention
in health care can play in raising the cost of such care. The
Hospital Association of New York State reveals that 24 percent of the
costs of hospital care in that state result from government regulations
aimed at cost and quality control. This report was based on a study of
148 hospitals. It was found that administrative personnel spend from
50 to 70% of their time complying with regulation. Even nurses spend
more than one-quarter of their time on such matters instead of in the
care of patients.

In that one state alone, New York, the number of employees engaged
full time in paper work, year-round, is equivalent to what it would
take to fully staff 75 hospitals with 250 beds each. Or put it another
way, they could provide full hospital services to 600,000 people.
Possibly New York is above the average in this regulatory extravagance,
but it indicates a problem that must be serious in all of the
country. In New York, regulatory costs add almost $40 a day to each
patient's bill.

Can any of us believe that total takeover by government would not
vastly increase the paper work, the regulations and the cost of health
care? We have provisions now for the elderly and the destitute and
more than 130 million Americans have some kind of health insurance.
If the government really wants to help, let it give citizens income tax
reductions or credits for health insurance premiums. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.
</TD>
<TD WIDTH="10%" ROWSPAN="2">&nbsp;</TD>
<TD VALIGN="TOP" HEIGHT="250">
=== Details ===
<TABLE BORDER="0" WIDTH="80%">
<TR><TD WIDTH="150">Batch Number</TD><TD WIDTH="150">{{PAGENAME}}</TD></TR>
<TD>Production Date</TD><TD>01/??/[[Radio1979|1979]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Book/Page</TD><TD>[[Radio_Commentary_Books#Reagan.27s_Path_to_Victory|RPtV-406]]</TD></TR>
<TD>Audio</TD><TD></TD></TR>
<TD>Youtube?</TD><TD>No</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD VALIGN="TOP">
===Added Notes===

</TD></TR>
</TABLE>