Everyone in the United States has had some interaction with our health care delivery system. Yet, to most people, health care seems extremely complicated and almost incomprehensible.

The tragedy is that our health care delivery system is now so distorted that a complete single-payer, government-controlled plan looks attractive to many people.

For those looking at the idea of a socialist system and finding themselves attracted by its seeming simplicity, you should take another deep look at the response government has had to the COVID pandemic. Even when new facts avail themselves it can take months for a change in policy.  Bureaucratic machines faced with individual circumstances that should warrant an exception in policy, become rigid and inflexible. For example, when a family-owned drive-in theater wanted to be treated differently than a sit-down indoor theater, it took weeks and media attention before common sense prevailed. Now imagine the millions of individual situations within a nationalized healthcare system and the enormity of the bureaucracy and you can imagine how difficult – how impossible it will be for the unconnected to get flexibility within any meaningful timeframe.

Socialized medicine will not increase access to medical care, and expenses of those systems are held down by rationing health care. This would not be acceptable to Americans and certainly would not be in their best interests.

There are reform measures that would place the patient, not the government, in charge of health care. Even with increased patient access we can control costs through informed patient choices.  This takes the power out of the hands of bureaucrats and directly into your hands—the hands of the patient.

My new book, Health Care Policy Simplified; Understanding a Complex Issue, lays out how in easy-to-understand language. It provides readers with a clear historic perspective on the steps elected officials have taken to develop this system and how it has twisted some incentives to work against our interest.

Centralizing the system means moving decision-making farther from you. That means you will have less control over the care you and your loved ones receive.  That might be acceptable if there were no other way, but there is. So read my book and share what you learn in it before you find yourself trapped in a system that makes your health care decisions (and those of your children and grandparents) for you.