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Show ;r..j Your Man In Washington ) By U.S. Senator Orrin G. Hatch National Health Insurance A Mistake The most immediate problem facing the nation's na-tion's medical community is the skyrocketing costs of health care. These costs, so visible to the consumer, are now becoming visible to the medical profession itself through increased malpractice litigation. At the same time, in order to offset the great expense of medical care, the public is looking to the federal . government for relief in some form of National Health Insurance. In 1976 this country spent $139.9 billion on health care. This represents repre-sents a per capita expenditure expen-diture of $638 for every man, woman and child in the country. That figure translates into five full weeks of work by the average Utahn to pay the medical expenses for each of the members of his family. Fortunately the average Utahn enjoys better bet-ter than average health, so his health care costs are less. The national health care price tag, however, has nearly doubled in the last six years. In the lifetime of this year's high school graduate, the cost of health care has increased in-creased eleven-fold. Naturally when a consumer con-sumer pays this kind of premium for health care services, he expects that service to be complete and faultless. President Jimmy Carter said on May 17, 1977, "I would like to have established a complete com-plete national health in surance program before I go out of office. We will be developing the comprehensive com-prehensive pro-posal. pro-posal. . .and I would guess that I will go to the Congress in early 1978. Basically, National Health Insurance is the beginning of medical collectivism col-lectivism and the first material step towards socialized medicine. The argument is often offered tliat National Health Insurance In-surance is the only answer for even and impartial distribution of health resources and services. This argument is the same old tired attack on the free enterprise system and at the same time' says the medical world cannot adapt adequately to take care of the needs of the people. In addition, National Na-tional Health Insurance advocates are saying once again that the federal government is the only answer to the current situation. That assertion is unfounded. Health care costs can be adequate in meeting the needs of the population and, hopefully, at a price most can afford. But it will take new dedication on the part of the medical community and a guarantee that the federal government will stay out of the industry. The trite campaign statement state-ment still remain true "anything the federal government can do, private enterprise can do better and make a profit." |