Regulations & Healthcare...FDA

To my blog friends...sorry I've been MIA. I can't really figure out how to start this, so I'm just gonna jump right in. The health-care industry is being regulated and changed out the wazoo. Let me explain...first, the cost of medicine gets a bad reputation here in the US. Here's what most people don't realize...a huge part of that cost is due to the FDA (Food & Drug Administration-an arm of our government) and their regulations and requirements to bring new drugs to market.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_37/b3799028.htm

So many people out there want to blame doctors, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companies...but no one outside of the health-care industry seems to think or know about the FDA and how much our government requires to bring a medicine to market. So let's put it this way, the safety profile and efficacy profile that the FDA requires and the public has come to rely on...comes at a cost. Even with that, we've all seen the advertisements on television by lawyers attempting to sue companies and doctors over certain medications. Obviously this is one reason the FDA has to do their job.
www.fda.gov

The above is only one part of this equation...here's another way to think how too much regulation hurts health-care. Just this week the FDA announced that they would be removing all unapproved cough and cold products from the market. This day was evident, but no one knew when the FDA would make this ruling...although there are some legit reasons for the FDA to take this action...there are also some negative implications for doing so. One, when you are a family member gets sick in the form of a cough and/or cold...your doctor won't have many options to treat your symptoms, atleast that are prescription only. That is going to stink from the patient's perspective. Another huge implication to this move by the FDA, it is going to increase unemployment. No doubt, there are several companies who have sold these products that will not be able to survive this. Not only those companies who market these products, but think further down the line than that. What about the companies that manufacture these products, and the other companies that are involved in bringing these products to market. There are a lot of pieces to this health-care puzzle.

The government has also requested the medical offices move away from old fashioned patient charts and files...and move to electronic records. Yeah, maybe there are parts of that that sound good...but what that also means is...cost of health-care goes up.

So, think about all of those aspects next time you go to visit your doctor. There is a reason that the majority of health care professionals are not in favor of the government interfering with health-care (Obamacare). Health-care is one thing that I know a little bit about...
think of the other aspects of our country that the government has its hand in...
energy (we all use energy in the form of electricity, oil, gas, etc...luckily I have a friend who is an expert in this area and am able to see how the government regulating and interfering in this area is a bad thing too)...truthfully, I don't even have to continue.

Case in point...smaller government with less interference in our everyday lives is a better solution!