..::: NEWS RELEASE
..::: JUNE 27, 2003
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine (AFCM) Blasts Bush on Medicare
"Bush's Medicare law is neither compassionate nor
conservative—it is pure Big Government and it will bring harm to
millions of Americans."
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA—Not everyone is thrilled with President Bush's new Medicare drug regulations—and at least one organization is directly challenging the President's motives.
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine (AFCM) denounced the largest
expansion of government intervention in medicine since Medicare was
passed 38 years ago as a huge step toward socialized medicine.
"The new Medicare law is a fundamental violation of individual
rights," contended Richard E. Ralston, AFCM's executive director. "The
law punishes everyone: the senior and the retired employee, who have a
right to free choice of drug treatments, the drug company and the
insurance company, which have a right to conduct their business, and
young people, who have a right to earn an unmolested living. No one
escapes unharmed."
"The underlying idea of this law, which was not widely supported
among most Americans, is the fallacy that health care is a right,"
Ralston explained. "The opposite is true. No one's need for medical care—including people who are old—is a claim on the livelihoods of
those who produce and practice medicine, whether doctors or drug
companies."
Ralston cited Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the law,
which estimates that many employers will drop their retired employees'
drug coverage. Ralston also questioned the President's goals.
"The President claims the law is compassionate," Ralston asserted.
"It is not compassionate to rob doctors, drug companies and patients of
their rights. It is not compassionate to rob everyone under age 65 of
their income to pay for the wealthiest generation of old people in
history. It is not compassionate to institute government control over
the world's greatest health care delivery system. President Bush's
compassion is a fraud. Bush's Medicare law is neither compassionate nor
conservative—it is pure Big Government and it will bring harm to
millions of Americans."
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, (AFCM), founded in 1993, is
the nation's only educational organization based on individual rights,
personal responsibility and free market ideas in medicine.
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Copyright © 2003 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.
For reprint permission, contact AFCM.
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