Who Pays the Price for Excessive Government Regulation in Healthcare?

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla., Sept. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Healthcare costs are bankrupting the United States. Medicare is headed towards insolvency. Health insurance costs to employees are projected to double over the next ten years.

We've all heard the dire warnings, but what can be done?

In Pharmocracy: How Corrupt Deals and Misguided Medical Regulations Are Bankrupting America — and What to Do About It (Praktikos Books, $24), author, health activist, and co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation®, William Faloon, documents the plethora of illogical regulations that directly raise the cost of healthcare in the United States. Faloon then outlines how the free market can provide superior healthcare, at far lower prices, while better protecting consumers.  

What's Hurting Us?

Each chapter in Pharmocracy enlightens readers to a new atrocity perpetrated by today's corrupt regulatory environment. At the core, these regulations benefit the financial interests of pharmaceutical companies. Faloon details such egregious examples as:

• The passing of the Medicare Prescription Drug Act (2003), which prohibits Medicare from using its enormous purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. This means taxpayers are stuck with the tab of paying around 60% more than government agencies like the Veteran's Administration (VA) which can negotiate drug discounts.
• FDA approvals for toxic drugs such as Trasylol®, used to control excessive surgical bleeding yet which caused renal dysfunction, or the pneumonia drug Ketek®, which can lead to severe liver damage.
• The FDA reclassifying select nutrients as prescription drugs at the behest of drug companies so those companies can reap economic benefits.
• Artificially inflated drug costs. Why a drug such as AndroGel®, a testosterone ointment, which would cost $180 per year at retail in a free market, now costs consumers $4,176 per year — an increase of over 2,000 percent!

"Americans have been deceived by those who associate regulations with beneficial outcomes.  As it relates to medical progress, the opposite has occurred," argues Faloon. "It's not about how a regulation will protect the public, but instead a matter of how can it financially benefit a special interest."

Saving Medicare from Bankruptcy

Pharmocracy reveals how "over-regulation" is the culprit behind today's healthcare crisis. Inefficient and corrupt government policies have caused medical prices to spiral out of control. Readers will be shocked to find out that the only reason this nation's sick-care system is descending into bankruptcy are incompetent and corrupt regulations. The economic result of this calamity is that Medicare faces an unfunded liability of such magnitude and that no one knows how to pay for it.

Medicare's unfunded liability is $24.6 trillion. That means for the government to meet its future Medicare obligations, it should have $24.6 trillion in a trust fund earning interest. The most recent official report states that Medicare's hospital fund will go bankrupt five years sooner than what Medicare's trustees estimated only a year ago. The government does not have the money to cover its future Medicare obligations. And Medicaid, which provides healthcare for lower income people, also has trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities.

To rectify these wrongs, Faloon's proposal is quite simple. Change the laws to allow free market competition to slash sick-care prices while vastly improving the ability of new technologies to prevent and treat disease.

Unleashing the Free Market

For 31 years, the Life Extension Foundation has sought to accelerate the development of therapies to better treat the diseases of aging. Standing in the way are swarms of government bureaucrats armed with convoluted powers that suffocate medical innovation. Pharmocracy documents that if it were not for the dictatorial powers bestowed on the FDA that cures for many of the killer diseases would have been discovered by now.

Pharmocracy consolidates what has been published in the public domain about the lethal dangers of over-regulation, including overpriced health care prices, side effect laden drugs, and lifesaving therapies that are delayed or suppressed altogether. A compelling argument is made for Congress to amend the law to tear down the roadblock of over-regulation so that free market forces can slash medical prices while developing safer and more effective therapies.

Empowering Consumers

Pharmocracy enables consumers to fight back against the institutionalized corruption that is rendering the nation insolvent.  It provides a blueprint for tearing down the bureaucratic barriers that push healthcare costs beyond the financial reach of the typical American.

If you've ever wondered why the costs of prescription drugs in the United States are the highest in the world, why it's illegal to import cheaper drugs from Canada or Mexico, or why each year, prescription drugs and health insurance cost more and more, read William Faloon's impassioned arguments in Pharmocracy.

Pharmocracy: How Corrupt Deals and Misguided Medical Regulations Are Bankrupting America — and What to Do About It (Praktikos Books, $24) is available now wherever books are sold or can be ordered from Life Extension by calling 1-800-544-4440 or visiting www.lifeextension.com.

Contact:
Rey Searles, Director of Marketing
Life Extension
(954) 766-8433
[email protected]

SOURCE Life Extension