At the end of July, I sent the following letter to the Denver Post in response to this story, but it was never published. Since I hate to waste a decent bit of writing, here ya go:

Maureen Tarrant, chief executive of Sky Ridge Medical Center, describes our health care system as “irrational” (“Forum backs principles for health care reform,” Jul 30).

She’s right. The cause is pervasive government controls in medicine: entitlements like Medicaid and Medicare, insurance benefit mandates, government licensing of doctors, privacy regulations, years for FDA drug approvals, and more. How can treating patients be a priority when so much effort must be devoted to appeasing an army of government bureaucrats?

Proposals like individual mandates and single-payer will compound the crisis by more government meddling in medicine. The rational approach to reform is a fully free market. Only free markets protect the right of every person to act by his own judgment, using his own property and labor for his own benefit. Anything else is an immoral demand that people sacrifice their money, time, and health at the point of a gun.

Diana Hsieh
Sedalia, CO