The government, either directly or indirectly, worsens the health of citizens in America. The majority of this damage is done by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA maintains the power of pre-market approval over medicines, medical devices, and similar items. This pre-market approval gives the FDA the power to deny medication.

All this is done under the defense that the FDA is somehow helping the health of the citizenry by preventing medical risk. For the average citizen, not exposed to rare diseases or rare forms of diseases, this system works as the FDA approves many medications for generic diseases.  But interestingly the FDA doesn't approve that many drugs considered to be highly risky medications targeted at rare diseases.  Often, the FDA delays market entry of these drugs for at least or two longer than other drugs.  Most patients with severe or even not all that severe disease do not mind taking risk when their health is involved.

More than that however, the FDA, because of pre-market approval, restricts innovation. The massive paperwork and the massive time required to be spent trying to approve a highly innovative drug is too challenging, as the more innovative the drug, the more likely it is to be risky.  Because of the paperwork burden, companies find it easier to get pre-market approval for non-innovative drugs.  Companies are satisfied by this system as the non-innovative drugs save them several production costs incurred in the creation of an innovative drug.  Moreover, companies are able to get non-innovative drugs on the market considerably faster than innovative drugs and thus start making money off these drugs faster.