Dalrymple makes some reasonable points:
“The one kind of reform that America should avoid is one that is imposed uniformly upon the whole country, with a vast central bureaucracy. No nation in the world is more fortunate than America in its suitability for testing various possible solutions”
but Dalrymple also admittedly has a stake in the claim:
“I also want, wherever I am, the Americans to go on paying for the great majority of the world’s progress in medical research and technological innovation by the preposterous expense of their system.”
Agreed. There’s a lot of European free-riding. Also:
“I mistrust the fact that, while those people who work for commercial companies (rightly) have to declare their interests in writing in medical journals, those who work for governmental agencies do not do so: as if government agencies had not interests of their own, and worked only for the common good.”
Indeed. The debate is heated. The left, politically, is framing the debate and steering the conversation. The right is flailing, and seems ideologically defensive.
See Also On This Site: From Becker-Posner: Mortality From Disease And The American Health-Care System…From The New Yorker: Atul Gawande On Health Care-”The Cost Conundrum”…From Clive Crook: Is Health Care Reform On Track?
Theodore Dalrymple In The City Journal: Atheism’s Problems
