Medicare Is a System That Stifles Innovation

Trudy Lieberman’s excellent article regarding photodynamic therapy for macular degeneration (“Medicare Warily Eyes Treatment for Macular Degeneration,” May 20) again drives home the point that Medicare is a “zero sum” program.

It promises virtually unlimited care for any disease to all Americans by virtue of their attaining a certain age. Yet it only has so much money to dole out each year, and that money is going to be divvied up among the various providers. The only way they have been able to balance their budget is to price-control the providers and stifle new technology.

This insanity has got to stop before all the hospitals are bankrupt, medical technology slows to a trickle and young people have ceased pursuing medicine as a career. The time has come to declare the program an abject failure and cut our losses. Write a check yearly for each Medicare recipient to use as he or she wishes without restriction, cancel the price controls on hospitals and physicians, and unleash the benefits of a free market in medical care. Then watch the surge in medical innovation and an increase in the quality and quantity of people attracted to medicine as a career.

DR. GREGORY E. POLITO

Whittier