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Right to Choose Own Doctor Essential

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Media Link - Arizona Republic
Written by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.   
Sunday, 02 November 1997 00:00
A little-noticed provision in the 1997 budget agreement makes it effectively illegal for doctors to accept private payments from patients older than 65. As a health care professional and a prospective patient, I am outraged by this new law. It is a profound violation of the individual rights of both doctor and patient. If a patient wants to obtain treatment outside of the Medicare system, then he has every moral right to seek it, and the doctor has every moral right to accept the payment. The government, which has no business being involved in the health care field in the first place, certainly has no right to force people to take part in the bankrupt, inefficient Medicare program. Does the government, after all, forbid parents from sending their kids to private schools if they choose? A new bill is moving its way through Congress. It is called the Medicare Beneficiary Freedom to Contract Act. This legislation seeks to restore the right of individuals older than 65 to contract privately with any health care professional they choose. Americans should support this legislation and any legislation that weakens government control of medicine and strengthens individual freedom. It is pathetic that things have reached a point in this country where its citizens have to beg the government for the right to see the doctors they choose. Still, it is crucial to support this bill as a matter of principle -- the principle that people have a right to control the destiny of their own lives. If a person cannot pay a doctor to save his own life -- then by what means does his government claim to protect his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Ironically, even in Great Britain -- where total socialized medicine is still the law -- a senior citizen is allowed to contract privately with a doctor of his own choosing. Yet President Clinton so strongly opposes private contracting for senior citizens that he threatened to veto the entire 1997 budget it the provision were left out. This makes one wonder: Is the government's motive really to provide "health care for all," something that is not its proper role anyway? Or is its motive simply to control people and make it impossible for them to live in freedom? Americans must write their representatives and oppose this latest violation of individual rights. If not, the government will feel entitled to outlaw all freedoms to people of all ages.
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