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..::: NEWS RELEASE
..::: AUGUST 17, 2005
Garamendi's Government-Run Medicine Gets a Thorough Examination from Calif.-Based Organization
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA—“Submit or go on strike” is the advice one
California-based health care advocacy organization has for doctors and
hospitals—in the face of California Insurance Commissioner John
Garamendi’s plan for government-controlled health care.
“California’s proposal puts health care dictatorship
into practice,” writes Scott Holleran, editor of Pulse for
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine (AFCM) in a new commentary. “The
ideas in this plan, if executed, revoke the rights of those who produce
medicine—the doctor, the pharmaceutical business, the hospital, the
insurance company—and leave every Californian to fight the state for
their lives.”
In a thorough examination of the 73-page paper,
Holleran points to several provisions as evidence that the plan is a
systematic violation of individual rights. Placing both treatment and
payment under government control, Garamendi’s plan imposes massive
regulations which force hospitals to spend huge sums trying to obey
arbitrary rules rather than save lives. It punishes doctors,
redistributes supplies from city hospitals to rural regions, expands
Medi-Cal, nursing subsidies, and restrictions on pharmaceutical firms,
including a ban on advertising and seizes proprietary software from
California businesses. Everything from children to grocery stores, which
will be forced to provide fresh fruits and vegetables—there’s also a
program to force Californians to adopt a “healthy lifestyle”—is
controlled by the state.
Holleran asks: “What do you, the patient, receive for
losing the freedom to choose a doctor and hospital? You get to suffer
under Garamendi’s bureaucratic rules.” In short, do not expect to send
an X-Ray for a second opinion without signing a stack of papers, waiting
long hours, or going to court. Scott Holleran’s health care commentary
has been published in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco
Chronicle and the Detroit News.
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, (AFCM), was
founded in 1993. AFCM educates the public about the principles of
socialized medicine and free market ideas, such as HSAs and tax reform,
and publishes a consumer's guide on its Web site (http://www.afcm.org).
AFCM is the nation's only educational organization based on individual
rights, personal responsibility, and free market ideas in medicine.
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Copyright © 2005 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.
Send reprint requests to . Reprints must include above copyright statement.
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