by Dr. Mary Ruwart

Why is health care so expensive? Why does it cost so much more every year?

The health care industry is one of the most highly regulated in the country. These regulations drive up costs enormously. About 80% of the costs of new drugs, for example, are due to regulations that are intended to make them safer. In practice, however, these regulations cause millions of premature deaths by adding 10 years to the drug development time of life-saving drugs and favoring new, expensive drugs over nutrients and older pharmaceuticals with good safety records.

In addition to driving up the costs of drugs, regulations have created a shortage of health care professionals by limiting the number trained each year. When the number of practitioners go down, prices go up.

Clearly, lowering health care spending by doing away with wasteful practices should be at the top of our health care reform list. Such reforms include:

1. Allowing individuals, as well as businesses, full tax credits/deductions for medical insurance and/or medical expenditures.

2. Ending insurance mandates that states impose.

3. Making doctors and their insurers liable only for actual negligence and malpractice.

4. Ending the regulation of medical professionals and employing a system of voluntary certification instead.

5. Ending FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals and employing a system of third-party certification instead.

Each of these measures by itself can decrease health care costs by at least 10%. Taken together, they can slash health care costs by 50% or more. This is true health care reform.

Editor's Note - Dr. Ruwart, generally regarded as a "Left-Libertarian," is a lifelong Libertarian Party member. She is the Author of the 1988 book "Healing our World." She has served on the Libertarian National Comm. and also for a period as an elected local public officeholder in Kalamazoo, MI. Today she's active with the Texas Libertarian Party.

Excerpted from a press release from Libertarian Party National HQ. Read the full release/editorial at LP.org. Hat tip to IPR.