In this American Thinker article, Deane Waldman argues that America’s health care system has been hijacked by federal bureaucracy, insurance structures, and third-party payers that now control both medical decisions and patient money.
- Waldman contends that patients no longer truly choose their doctors, appointment timing, medications, procedures, or hospitals because those decisions are increasingly shaped by health plans, contracts, algorithms, and federal rules.
- He argues that the “doctor-patient relationship” has been replaced by a bureaucracy-patient relationship, where computers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, and lawyers effectively determine care.
- The article criticizes long wait times, limited doctor networks, efficiency benchmarks, and “fail first” drug policies as examples of how the system prioritizes control and cost-management over patient preference.
- Waldman says employer-sponsored health insurance grew out of a World War II wage-freeze policy and now diverts worker compensation into insurance-controlled spending rather than letting employees control their own health care dollars.
- He claims the U.S. spent nearly $5 trillion on health care in 2025, but less than half went directly to patient care, with the rest consumed by bureaucracy, rules, enforcement, and administrative waste.
- The piece also points to Medicaid fraud scandals and broader government oversight failures as evidence that federal systems are poor stewards of health care money.
- Waldman frames medical autonomy as a core American principle that has been undermined by third-party payment systems and government control.
- His proposed solution is to “cut out the middleman” by reducing regulations, bureaucracy, and third-party control while returning financial control to patients.
- The article promotes the Empower Patients Initiative from Americans for Tax Reform as a way to restore both financial and medical authority to individuals.
Read the full story: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/05/do_you_really_want_washington_as_your_doctor.html
