Free market enthusiasts: test your fervor, before you eviscerate Uncle Sam from Health Care USA.
Start with the lab tests that tell you whether you have cancer? Lyme disease? Alzheimer’s? Whether your fetus is malformed?
Do you want Uncle Sam to oversee them? We have a flurry of tests that are essentially unregulated, untested by organizations you want to trust. The tests are profitable; the industry, thriving. Patients like knowing whether they have, or even might have, disease x,y,z, or are predisposed to it. But without the testing and evaluation of those tests, it is caveat emptor.
Uncle Sam wants to remedy that, asking for legislation to oversee this marketplace that has been thriving without the onerous federal boot. For years Uncle Sam has argued for oversight. For years, lobbyists, abetted by right-thinking politicos, have stopped oversight.
Where do you stand? Your answer will gauge your adherence to the free market principles you want to expand.
Another test: phenylephrine. In this winter-of-colds, COVID, pneumonia and flu, a lot of Americans will be coughing; and many will be reaching for cough syrup, expecting the elixir to tame their coughs. This too is a vibrant industry: stroll the “cold” aisle of your pharmacy to see how vibrant. But phenylephrine, although not harmful, does not relieve coughs. Maybe people have benefited from a placebo effect, but not from a medicinal one. Uncle Sam recently stepped in: Sudafed, Tylenol, Mucinex, et al, have withdrawn their products, awaiting reformulation. Those pharmacy “cold” shelves still showcase remedies, but none contain phenylephrine.
Did this decision mark overreach by Uncle Sam? Without his interference, we would have been reaching for cough syrups that didn’t relieve coughs. You decide.
A third test: breathing machines. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, sleep apnea, muscular dystropy, pneumonia, asthma, post-surgical recovery, weakened lungs — lots of conditions call for help breathing. Machines can help. Problems with some machines emerged as early as 2015, when the FDA received reports of more than 100,000 injuries, and 385 deaths possibly linked to foam that blew into patients mouths. Eventually Philips Respironics recalled the machines. The behemoth settled, paying $479 million to patients harmed by its defective machines. Before the’ lawsuits, though, there was the FDA, collecting the reports of malfunctions. Since the recall, moreover, the FDA has continued to collect complaints.
Do you want the companies that make breathing machines to have free rein?
On to yogurts, specifically “probiotic” yogurt, full of “friendly bacteria” that promotes gut health, or so the hype promises. One company (Evivo with MCT OIL, manufacturing by Infinant Health) urged parents to give babies, even newborns, probiotics. One baby was killed by the bacteria; the FDA investigated; and the warning has gone out to hospitals: don’t give probiotics to preterm infants. It is hard to object to that warning.
The battle lines are clear. On one side, profitable businesses, with shareholders, executives and lobbyists. The businesses generate profits, which pay wages, dividends and prop up the economy. On the other side are the “feds,” with a slew of scientists, physicians and researchers. The “feds” spew out restrictions on those businesses. In this season of Thanksgiving, the most fervent free market ideologues among us should thank “the feds.”
Joan Retsinas is a sociologist who writes about health care in Providence, R.I. Email joan.retsinas@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2023
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