The Free Market in Medical Care: Central Planning and Control vs. Free Market Mechanisms in Medicine

The most prominent theme of “Take Back Our Health Care” is the restoration of a genuine free market in medical care—not the “market” touted by corporations, but a market more akin to the traditional free market and to the systems of Greek and Medieval medical care. The amazing scientific and technological advances in medicine and the effect of those advances changed the role of physicians and increased the costs of care. Increased governmental and corporate control of medicine threatens us all. A genuinely free market is described, as well as the challenges facing those markets. Doctors are in the position of Aesculapius, who, in the cover graphic, represents medicine. His choice is between mercury (merchants) and the three graces (medicine, hygiene, and panacea). Aesculapius treated patients; merchants make deals with clients. The book focuses on the solution.