The Freedom Bulletin

The biggest problem with the medical system in America is that people do not have the freedom to make their own decisions. This is the result both of laws passed by the government and deeply anti-liberty attitudes that are ingrained in doctors. This article exemplifies what is wrong with our health system. It’s about the “problem” that doctors often prescribe medications that their customers ask for. I find it a little ironic that an article about how patients shouldn’t be able to choose what medications they get is in the “Empowered Patient” section of CNN.com. Anyway, here are a couple of the best quotes from it:

“There’s constant pressure to say yes to things even when it’s not in the patient’s best interest,” said Dr. Joseph Weiner, chief of consultation psychiatry at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. “It’s become an everyday dilemma.” For example, he said doctors sometimes say yes to demands for antibiotics even in cases of the common cold, or submit to demands for drugs advertised on television when that drug isn’t the best choice.

“In the current environment in which patients are supposed to be treated like customers, there is sometimes the expectation that the customer is always right and should get whatever is asked for,” said Dr. Danielle Ofri, assistant professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine.

News flash, doctors: patients are customers, and your job is to give your customers what they ask for. If people want a medication and are willing to pay for it, then they have the right to that medication, and as someone they’re paying, you have an obligation to give them what they want.

America was founded on the principle that people have a basic right to pursue their own happiness, and therefore people have a right to take the medicines that they choose. Doctors have no right to deny people medicines. Every person has the right to be the judge of his or her own best interest, and to act on whatever judgments he or she may make (as long as those actions do not violate the rights of anyone else).

I should make it clear that doctors do legally have the right to deny medicines to people. This unfortunate fact is due to the Durham-Humphrey Amendment, which, in my opinion, is unjust and unconstitutional and should be abolished. But the passage of this unconstitutional law does not change the fact that doctors have no moral right to stop people from obtaining the medicines that they want.

Doctors never “submit” to their customers by allowing them to make their own decisions; they merely fulfill the obligation that they have in a supposedly free society. Unfortunately, in our society, the role of a doctor is to tell people what they can and cannot do about health-related matters. Instead, their role should be to perform procedures that people ask for (kinda like movers, electricians, plumbers, and hairdressers) and to give advice when asked for (like financial advisors and consultants). Doctors shouldn’t be involved in the decision about what medicines to take unless a customer asks their advice. Just as we aren’t legally required to obtain a stylist’s permission before buying clothes, a feng shui expert’s permission before moving our furniture, or a financial advisor’s permission before investing money, we shouldn’t need a doctor’s permission for medication. Until doctors’ roles change, the medical system will never have any hope of working right, and America will never be free.

The medical system in America is in crisis and needs reform. But the problem isn’t that 47 million people are uninsured, or that people don’t have access to health services. There are three main problems, listed below in order of importance:

1. People have no freedom. In today’s society, people do not have control over their health decisions; doctors do. People can’t get medications without a doctor’s prescription, thanks to the Durham-Humphrey Amendment. Doctors think it’s their job to take notes on people and tell people what procedures they should get, what they should eat, and how their should live their lives. The FDA bans many medications that would benefit people. Instead, a doctor’s job should be to serve customers and give advice when asked for, and the FDA’s job should be to protect the public from deception by drug companies.
2. Payment methods are too complicated. You never see signs in doctors’ offices listing how much each procedure costs. Instead we have a huge mess of insurance companies paying doctors for some procedures and not others, insurance companies paying for some medications at the pharmacy and not others, the government paying for some people’s insurance but not others, employers paying for some of your insurance, you paying for some of your insurance, you paying a co-pay or a deductible or co-insurance…the confusion never ends.  Plus, the insurance companies won’t tell you up front what’s covered and what’s not. They have the power to refuse to cover you altogether, to refuse to cover any procedure they say isn’t medically necessary, to require proof that you’re a student, to require all sorts of incomprehensible paperwork, et cetera. This system is disorderly, messy, ugly, and intuitively displeasing, and it rips people off and sometimes even kills people.
3. The government spends too much money on health services. It’s wrong for the government to take money from the rich and use it to pay for Medicaid, SCHIP, and other health programs for the poor. It’s also wrong for them to take from the young and give to the old, like they do with Medicare. The only things that tax money should pay for are the military, roads, and the legal system.

Unfortunately, all three of these things are deeply entrenched in our society, and anyone who questions them is considered a radical. In my next post, I’ll go more into detail about problem #1 and show some examples that I’ve noticed in the news recently that really epitomize what is wrong with our medical system.

Have you ever heard of the Durham-Humphrey Amendment? Until a week or two ago, I hadn’t.

It seems to be simply a fact of life that you need a prescription to get certain medications. If you need medicine, you go to a doctor, and the doctor writes a prescription, which gives you permission to get the medicine. If you get the medicine without a prescription, it’s illegal. One day, I wondered exactly when this became the case. Certainly there weren’t such things as prescriptions in Washington and Jefferson’s time.

I went to the FDA’s website, looked at their timeline of FDA history, and found the answer: October 26, 1951. On this date, Congress passed the Durham-Humphrey Amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The Amendment divided drugs into two categories: over the counter and prescription, and gave the FDA the power to put drugs in one category or the other. Prescription drugs are considered unsafe, and therefore illegal, to use without direct medical supervision, and it is illegal to give them out to anyone who does not have a prescription from a doctor. Senator and former vice president Hubert Humphrey co-sponsored the Amendment.

I believe that the Durham-Humphrey Amendment is immoral and unconstitutional. First, it is unconstitutional because nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to decide what medications are safe, control what medications people use, or force people to go to a doctor in order to get medications.

Second, the Durham-Humphrey Amendment is immoral because it treats people as if they are unable to take care of themselves. By telling people that they are incapable of making their own decisions about medicines, the government is treating its citizens like parents treat their children. This is demeaning, disrespectful, and completely unacceptable in a supposedly free country like America.

Choosing to take medicine without seeing a doctor is not immoral, and it does not hurt anyone (unless you count the poor, starving doctors, who are deprived of revenue). Therefore, it shouldn’t be illegal. Of course, there will always be some people who make decisions that they later regret, but people have the right to make their own choices about their lives. The fact that some people make bad decisions does not change this. The government has no right to force people to gain a doctor’s approval for their actions, thereby depriving them of their independence and often their dignity.

Doctors have far too much power in today’s society, and the government is the main reason why. The feds need to give people more credit by recognizing that we have the right to take care of ourselves. The American people need their liberty back, and the Durham-Humphrey Amendment needs to be repealed.