The problem is INSURANCE.

Health care is the only service people buy without actually paying the people offering it. We pay the insurance company, who in turn pays the providers. This third step is why costs are so high.

We all are intimately familiar with having to use 3rd party providers in order for our websites to take VISA/Maser Card. Do you agree that ccBill and Epoch raise the costs of doing business? You have no idea what they are paying the banks themselves.... it's expensive!

Why do you want to inflict this kind of system on everyone who needs to see a doctor?

Prices on services have gone down across the board --- but not health care, and this is because no one shops, no one knows what they are really buying.

One last point -- here in the US, an extremely effective allergy drug, Zyrtec, just was allowed to be sold over the counter.

Austinites jokingly refer to their city as the allergy capital of the world. Every Summer, you get cedar allergies. Last year, I went to a doctor who wrote me a script for Zyrtec. I paid $90 for my bottle of pills. Of course, me and thousands of others get cedar allergies every year, so we know exactly what we need, but we have to pay to see a doctor, who must write a prescription.

The FDA allowed it to be sold over the counter at the beginning of February. Walgreens now sells Zyrtec for $22 a bottle - AND you can go the Zyrtec website for additoinal coupons.

Why was Zyrtec $90 by prescription? Because that's what insurance companies would pay for it --- and that's how most people were buying it. Now I'm not saying everything should be sold over the counter. But if you got rid of this stupid insurance system, the market would force prices down.

Steve