Bottom-Up Solution to Top-Down Medical Disaster Offered by Ohio Physician in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

TUCSON, Ariz., Sept. 12, 2016 -- Medicine is being “fundamentally transformed” into an unaffordable, complex, adversarial, depersonalized labyrinth, writes dermatologist Melinda Woofter, M.D., of Granville, Ohio, in the fall issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Woofter is currently president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

The direct reason for the unsustainable system, she writes, is government distortion of the marketplace, destroying cost transparency: “Government control of resources always leads to less for everyone. Without natural price signals for market adjustments, costs soar as resources are wrongly allocated, wasted, and squandered.”

In an effort to fix the problem it caused, government resorts to further price controls and still more coercion and restrictions, she explains. Solutions are difficult to find because “government powerholders and third-party cronies who benefit from this will not give up their stranglehold on medicine.”

Dr. Woofter recommends a short new primer analyzing the causes of the high costs and deteriorating quality of American medicine: Common Sense Medicine: Restoring the Patient/Physician Relationship by Jeff Danby. The key is not to pass more laws and regulations, but to restore natural price discovery between patients and doctors, Danby writes.

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943.

Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail., or Melinda Woofter, M.D., [email protected]