The FDA is Universal Health Care

The Supreme Court recently ruled that a person with a terminal illness does not have the right to drugs not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and in so doing struck a severe blow to individual rights. The ruling supplants the federal government as the only body that can decide what drug treatments work, and essentially reaffirms the FDA's monopoly on what drugs may be sold legally in the United States. The result: the federal government's power grows, even though this power was not granted to it in the Constitution, and universal health care has been legalized.

The FDA has an important role in ensuring a minimum standard of quality in the food and drugs bought and sold in the United States. However, the minimum standard has evolved (or devolved) into an absolute standard; particularly for the drugs the agency oversees. The opinions of the physicians and professionals who make up the FDA are absolute. Their decisions on which drugs are safe or effective dictate the treatment options for every American. It is in this manner that the FDA has become - and will increasingly become - the centerpiece of universal health care.

Consider the example of a person with a terminal illness that has exhausted all treatment options approved by the FDA. Such a person cannot try new experimental drugs, no matter how promising the drugs may be, if those drugs are not approved by the FDA. One government agency in its effort to protect its citizens has thus limited their choices and denied its citizens their most basic right to pursue life. The opinions of physicians who wish to prescribe the unapproved drug are trumped by the opinions of physicians who act as government agents via the FDA.

American citizens can only decide their course of medical treatment as far as the government will allow. Innovation can occur no faster than the bureaucracy of the FDA can process. In addition, there is no guarantee that the drugs or treatments the FDA has approved are indeed effective. The Supreme Court's ruling moves the country closer to one method of care for all as dictated by the federal government.

The FDA will become even more domineering if the Democrats are allowed to enact their universal health care plans. The logical evolution of government financed health care is growing government control over methods of care. Under a universal health care plan, should the quality of care falter politicians must assert more control over physicians and their treatment options to "ensure" the people's tax dollars are spent effectively.

There is something very different about government financed health care. For example, how many second opinions will be allowed for a person dependent on government financed health care? Should an infinite number of second opinions be allowed, and what if it's the eighth opinion that can save a life? Although we despise the insurance agencies for making such decisions, its an entirely different ballgame when it's your own government denying you every chance at life.