Healthcare is a Form of Control.

​Dear Matthew,
 
In the last letter, I threw out the spoiler that you will become a doctor. I’ll follow that up in this letter with another spoiler – the modern healthcare system isn’t about medicine, it’s about control.
 
Control?  Yes. The modern healthcare system is an extension of government control.
 
I’ll keep this as simple as possible.

Doctors get paid to treat disease by performing tests and prescribing drugs and surgery.
 
The sicker someone gets, the more stuff the doctor must do, the more they get paid and the more the drug companies get paid.
 
See the problem?  Poor choice of incentives if you wanted doctors to make people healthy…..just sayin.
 
Now add another layer.
 
The government enforces a law that says every employer of a certain size must provide health insurance. The government also collects taxes to fund its own healthcare insurance programs.
 
These laws allow private interests and the government to take your money before you have a chance to use it. You no longer control those dollars. You no longer have a say in how they will be used. You no longer have a vote in what counts as medicine and neither does your doctor.

Your hard earned money leaves your paycheck before you get it to fund government programs and private businesses which control medicine by deciding what will and what will not be covered. Now go back and read the first line - Doctor's get paid to treat disease by performing tests and prescribing drugs and surgery.  Who decided that was the best way to get healthy?
 
See the problem?  
 

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