In Praise of U.S. Health Care

Since Behethland is a fan of socialized medicine, this article is posted in honor of her... :-)

by Michael D. Tanner

Michael Tanner is director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute.

Twenty years of public policy research on health care recently came home to me in a very personal way when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Because I live in a country with a free-market health-care system, I had a choice of treatments: surgery, external radiation, brachytherapy. I was able to find the doctor and hospital I felt most comfortable with. As a result, I can expect to live a long, healthy, cancer-free life.

If I lived elsewhere, this might not have been the outcome.

In most countries with national health insurance, the preferred treatment for prostate cancer is ... to do nothing.