Bmda: Health care or food? Choose

Bermudans have a choice to make. That is the same choice confronting many around the globe.

Bermudians are being forced to choose between buying food and prescription drugs — and not just the elderly living on fixed incomes.

Health workers are experiencing a new and worrying trend — working Bermudians under age 65 who cannot afford to pay for medications even when they are insured.

The question is, should the remedy be government-run health-care systems, or should it be Medical Savings Accounts (MSA), and Health Savings Accounts here, as President Bush is advocating? Proponents of the government-run system need only to look at the U.K. and Canada to see how the system can devolve to the detriment of patient care. A market-driven system is more likely to keep costs down.