Out-of-control health-care costs

This morning, the medic prescribed some eye drops to treat my red eyes. Allergy, he says. I just picked up the prescription. Cost: $222 for 5 ml. That works out to $44,400 per liter or $168,072 per gallon! The active ingredient makes up only .1% of the drops. This virtually pure water must be good stuff!

If I may editorialize a bit, the soaring cost of health care began with FDR's wage/price-fixing in WWII. Industry had no choice but to offer other incentives to attract skilled labor. The most significant incentive offered was health insurance. Before that, the cost of health care was covered by the consumer and by charity -- not insurance or government. Once third-party payers (insurance companies) became part of the picture, most consumers ceased to be cost-conscious and costs soared. Later, our politicians bought our votes with our own money by adding "free" socialist health care for the elderly (Medicare) and low-income consumers (Medicaid, CHIP, etc), driving health care costs even higher. (A similar predicable impact on costs came with government intervention in education.)

I know that a significant portion of that $222/5ml is to recover the producer's cost of development and testing. But I also dare say that government meddling in the free market is the primary reason my eye drops are so expensive.

Of course, all aware Americans know what the so-called "Affordable" Care Act (AKA ObamaCare) has done to health-care and health-insurance costs. Surely, we can count on ever more government to fix the problems the government created in the free market.

We need smarter voters.