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Consider the following: You have a heart problem and desperately need a state-of-the-art procedure to correct it. However, you’re worried the high cost of treatment will bankrupt you. Certainly this is a stressful situation. But then you learn that, for some inexplicable reason, the surgeon who developed the technique retired and his clinic will no longer offer the procedure.
You breathe a sigh of relief. The remaining treatment options, while not very effective, are affordable. Your financial problems are solved. You’ll no longer have to worry about going bankrupt due to high medical costs.
If this strikes you as idiocy, you’ll be sad to hear it’s precisely the kind of “solution” being pushed through Washington in the name of health care “reform.”
A recent episode of Office Hours, a production of the UW political science department, illustrates this line of thinking.
After presenting a litany of alleged deficiencies of U.S. health care, the program host asked whether there’s anything the U.S. does right. Reluctantly, one professor indicated the U.S. has the best state-of-the-art care in the world.
You might be thinking state-of-the-art health care is good, a cause for celebration, something that might warrant discussion. What makes state-of-the-art care possible, for example? Or what kinds of policies promote its continued development, cost reduction and wider availability?
Unfortunately, like the characters in Washington they study, these political scientists show little interest in such matters. With a tone of banal indifference they quickly assure themselves and viewers that state-of-the-art health care is not a panacea. It is expensive, they say.
Why is it expensive? No one thinks to ask. Instead, a quote from Newsweek is presented that supposedly reveals Canada has solved the problem of high medical costs.
“While the U.S. lets some 700,000 people go bankrupt due to medical bills each year, the number of medical bankruptcies in Canada is precisely zero.”
Wow! How does this Canadian system work? Unfortunately, these PhDs have precisely zero to say on the issue, so let’s try to fill in the blanks.
Since the Canadian government dictates the services and fees that are available and prohibits doctors and patients from contracting with each other freely, expensive state-of-the-art health care is simply not available in Canada like it is in the U.S.
Like our hypothetical doctor who “saved” you from bankruptcy by closing up shop, socialized medicine takes the cost out of health care by removing the “state-of-the-art” option from the menu and forcing all spending through a single payer. So this much is true: no one goes bankrupt when they’re not allowed to spend their own money.
This kind of “solution” pervades all health care “reform” proposals without discussion or analysis. Every problem is treated as some causeless offense to be legislated away without concern for cause, effect, economic laws or individual liberty.
If specialists like cardiologists and oncologists are expensive, the proposed solution is to pay them less. If millions are going without insurance, the proposed solution is to force everyone to buy insurance. If insurance is difficult to obtain after you get sick, the proposed solution is to force companies to provide coverage regardless of health.
Our health care system is broken, explained the professors on Office Hours. Costs are rising, millions are going without insurance and many are locked into employer-sponsored insurance. But not once did they discuss what might be causing these problems.
What about the wage and price controls on businesses that led to insurance being tied to one’s employer and the tax penalties imposed on individuals from which employers are exempt? Might these have something to do with the unavailability of individual insurance?
Then there are the laws against buying out-of-state insurance, community-rating laws, which prohibit setting rates based on health and lifestyle differences, penalties imposed for not providing coverage for routine checkups and medicines and the massive Medicare and Medicaid programs that use their monopoly power to cap prices and shift costs to individuals.
Given these and countless other government interventions in health care (50 percent of health care dollars are spent by government), is it possible our health care problems are caused by too many controls and not enough freedom?
The Office Hours professors aren’t going there. The unquestioned assumption from the outset — the one thing everyone agrees on is: “We need stronger rules about what insurance companies are able to do and not do.”
Whatever the causes, economic principles and actual effects on health care and liberty, the government needs more power. Stripped of its phony claims about reducing costs, this is what socialized medicine — ahem, “reform” — is really about.
Jim Allard ([email protected]) is a graduate student in biological sciences.
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May I suggest a different title?
“You can’t buy what doesn’t exist.”
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Just as a heads, up - most UHC options on the table allow you to keep your private ‘state of the art’ health care if you want to.
So you know, this entire article is a pointless mischaracterization.
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Kid, do some research on the health care proposal. The government-run health insurance option, in conjunction with draconian rules on private providers, will completely destabilize the private market. Econ 101 would help you understand how markets work.
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The private providers would be disrupted because their current state is basically an oligopoly. Econ 102 covers those. They’ll just be pushed back into a competitive market.
If private providers’ business models are unsustainable without price-gouging someone (the recipient, the recipient’s employer, medicare/medicaid, etc) then whose fault is that?
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when did people start sticking up for insurance companies?
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Since it became a viable way to give the finger to liberals?
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genius
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I got an A in econ 101 & 102.
P.S. insurance providers don’t make the technical innovations that this article is talking about. Blue Cross Blue Shield does not have staff scientists.
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State of the art care is not free, it must be produced and funded. Insurance provides a crucial mechanism, which allows this type of innovation to be funded. Destroying the insurance market will destroy state of the art care.
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How many people would need state-of-the-art care for stage IV cancer if insurance paid for the screening exams to catch it early?
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Very good point. Much of the high costs of health care would be tremendously reduced if people had better care and were able to catch these illnesses and diseases before it is too late (applies to diabetes, hypertension, etc. etc.).
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“Better” cannot be decided by force.
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It doesn’t matter whether it’s one or 20 million. The issue is not what kinds of checkups and screenings are best. The issue is whether you allow individuals and insurance companies to function or whether you force them to act against their own judgments.
Forcing insurance companies to cover screenings will mean that more people will get screened whether it makes sense for them or not, because that’s what they’re being forced to pay for. And the whole concept of insurance is destroyed. (Insurance works by evaluating risk and counting on the fact that only as small number will need major payouts.)
If screenings truly reduce the number of people who need cancer treatment then, in a free-market, insurance companies will offer discounts to people who get screenings because this will decrease their risks. This will act to lower costs and strengthen insurance coverage.
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I’ll take your last paragraph as an admission that the current setup does not even vaguely resemble a free market.
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An admission? My entire point is that we don’t have a free-market now, but that we need one.
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Not true. Current proposals dictate what types of insurance plans are allowed, mandate that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions, force everyone to carry a government approved plan or pay a penalty, cut funding for high-tech treatment in favor of “preventative care” and on and on.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that current plans will increase individual health care insurance costs by 10 to 13 percent.
All of this has the effect of making state of the art care less available and affordable and pushing more people into taxpayer funded programs.
It’s like saying that you can have your state of the art care after we take more of your money, place more restrictions on what insurance you can buy, restrict funding for high-tech with the money we took from you, etc.
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This entire article is a horrible straw man of a bastardization against healthcare reform. Right now healthcare costs are being driven up by rampant fraud, insurance companies’ refusal to cover preventative care, wastefully inefficient administrations, and people demanding treatments that they don’t really need. (See http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20091113/bs_bw/0947b4156034717852.) Addressing these issues won’t change that we’re being treated, but instead change the current fact that we pay 40% more than other industrialized countries but have literally the poorest day-to-day care and coverage among the industrialized world.
PS, “the surgeon who developed the technique retired and his clinic will no longer offer the procedure.” Seriously? No clinic would give up a potential revenue stream because one guy left. It’s not rational behavior.
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Everything that you are describing is a product of government intervention into health care.
The fraud, the waste, the demand for unnecessary treatments; this is all a result of forcibly preventing patents from controlling and spending their own money and by imposing thousands of rules and restrictions ever little detail of medical care. Physicians routinely complain that they spend more time doing paperwork than treating patents. And most people have no idea what their medical care costs and have no way to find out.
“No clinic would give up a potential revenue stream because one guy left. It�s not rational behavior.”
It’s not rational in a free-market, but when government regulations make it impossible to make a profit, then it is often the only rational course of action. Canada, for example, loses countless doctors and nurses to America for this very reason.
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Then there’s no reason not to do it. If I’m right, we’ll improve. If you’re right, we’ll end up back where we’ve been for the last 20 years.
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Poorly written, impossible hypotheticals, unfounded assumptions and a completely unbalanced argument. There is literally nothing redeeming about this editorial, although I suppose that its so awful that it actually does more harm than good in garnering support for the views expressed therein.
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Yeah, everything that Congress and the federal government are currently responsible for is going soooooo well - what a genius idea to put them in charge of rest of the healthcare system (the part outside of Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc. that they already control and have run into HUGE deficits).
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As we have long predicted on this blog, the health care “reformers” propose to finance at least part of the “savings” or new benefits — it is impossible to know which — by decreasing the rate of return on medical technology. There are many ways in which this might be done, but the Senate Democrats are proposing to do so directly, by levying a “value added tax” on medical device companies according to their proportion of U.S. sales. This tax would be without regard to profitability, so it would amount to a capital tax on start-ups and a massive income tax surcharge on profitable companies, varying as net margins do. In the case of my own mid-sized company, the tax would be the equivalent of a roughly 20% surcharge on our net income (in all likelihood raising our economic tax rate well above 50%) or 50% of our research and development budget, depending on how you want to look at it.
Any way you look at it, the proposed tax is a calculated effort to divert capital from the medical technology industry to other uses in the economy, because new medical technology drives costs that are now going to be assumed by the government (or at least will be if the Senate leadership gets its way). Of course, innovative medtech also extends and saves lives, and makes them more comfortable and more productive. Which is, after all, the point of medicine.
http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2009/09/health-care-reformers-go-after-medical.html
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Another fantastic article Jim.
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Do something that most of your Legislators have not: Read the bill! Below you will find a synopsis of the first 239 pages of the +2000 page bill. Scroll down and read it. Then tell me: Do you REALLY want to support this?
To those that oppose this Stalinesque takeover of our personal health care rights and responsibilities, I urge you to fight it with every tool available to you!
To those that support it, I urge you to get your collective heads our of your collective orifices and READ THE BILL. It will change your collective minds or expose you as hard line communist wannabes.
This is not health care reform. It is a total takeover of our individual, constitutionally guaranteed privacies. “Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
ObamaCare requires full access and disclosure of your personal bank accounts, investment accounts, tax documents, health insurance coverage, care providers, and other personal information and effects, to government bureaucrats and health care adjudicators. It forces you to pay for and consume a Government controlled product, not by taxation but by direct access to your personal financial accounts. It is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment. There is no ambiguity here. The Obamacare bill effectively issues a nondescript search and siezure warrant on every American Citizen. What is being advocated is willful and direct violation of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Obama administration and the Democrats trying to Rahm this bill through, against the expressed desires of the majority of US Citizens.
Only 27% of recently polled American citizens support the Obamacare single payer health care proposal. 62% of American citizens oppose it. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publiccontent/politics/currentevents/healthcare/november2009/62opposesinglepayerhealthcare_system Yet, Obama and the Senate Democrats are considering extreme measures to thwart the will of the American majority and force their marxist agenda on all of us.
You elected these wannabe tyrants. You can stand now with the American people and oppose this gross miscarriage of presidential and legislative power… or lie down with your Obama Buggery Bureaucrats and enjoy the Rahming.
Choose!
Synopsis of the the Obamacare bill:
Pg 22 of the Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!! Pg 30 Sec 123 of bill � THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you receive. Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill � YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED. Pg 42 of HC Bill � The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your Health care Benefits for you. You have no choice in the decision. PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill � Healthcare will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise. Pg 58 � Govt will have real-time access to individual finances & a National ID Healthcard will be issued. Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access to your bank accounts for direct funds transfers. PG 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community orgs (ACORN). Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating a Healthcare Exchange to bring private healthcare plans under Govt control. PG 84 Sec 203 HC bill � Govt mandates ALL benefit packages for private Healthcare plans in the Exchange PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill � Specifics for Benefit Levels of Plans = The Government rations Healthcare based on cost benefits to government. PG 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill � Govt mandates linguistic appropriation services or translation services for illegal aliens. Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The Govt will use groups like ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Govt Healthcare plan PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill � Specifics of Benefit Levels for Plans. #AARP members � your Health care WILL be rationed. -PG 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill � Medicaid Eligible Individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. pg 124 lines 24-25 No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No �judicial review� allowed against Govt monopoly pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill � Doctors/ AMA � The Govt will dictate what wage you are allowed to make. (Wage limits). Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employers MUST enroll their employees into the public option plan. THEY HAVE NO CHOICE, and neither do the employees. Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay premiums for every employee, part time employees AND their families as well. Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer with a payroll of $400,000 will have an 8% tax levied on all payroll. pg 150 Lines 9-13 Employers with payroll between $251,000 & 400,000 who does not provide in full, the public option, will have a 6% tax on all payroll levied. Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable HC coverage according to Govt mandate, will be taxed at 2.5% of their income for healthcare. So, you will have government healthcare coverage, or you will be punished. Pg 170 Lines 1-3 HC Bill Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay) Pg 195 HC Bill -officers & employees of HC Administration (GOVT) will have total and complete access to ALL your personal financial, bank and investment information. PG 203 Line 14-15 HC � �The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax� Yes, it says that. Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Govt will reduce physician services for Medicaid, Seniors, low income, and poor.
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Only an idiot would believe that state-of-the-art care is not available in Canada, Jim. And all you would have to do to know that is actually talk to a Canadian.
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Yeah, talk Natasha Richardson about that great Canadian health care! Oh, wait, you can’t talk to her - she’s DEAD, a Victim of Canadian Health Care. She should have been skiing in the USA and she’d still be alive! But those hosers are saving money, and that’s what matters - right?
In the USA treatment would have been available but in Canada?
…driving to Mont Tremblant from the city (Montreal) is a 2 1/2-hour trip, and the closest trauma center is in the city. Our system isn’t set up for traumas and doesn’t match what’s available in other Canadian cities, let alone in the States,” said Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre, which represents six of Montreal’s hospitals.
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It instead sounds like she’s a victim of geography, no?
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I don’t respond to personal attacks, but for others who might be reading this and are interested in discussing the issue…
State of the art care is not completely unavailable, but not to the degree that it is in the U.S. This is not really controversial. It is widely recognized that the U.S. is the best place to get state-of-the-art care.
The point is that Canada achieves lower health care spending (at least visible spending) by limiting what people are allowed to spend, the treatments that are available and the timeliness in which they are available.
“Talking to a Canadian” is probably not the most scientific way to determine comparative state-of-the-art-ness. Here’s one study, which looks at medical technology in Canada, for those who are interested.
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/productfiles/MedicalTechnologyinCanada.pdf
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Really great article Jim, one of your best. Keep up the good work.
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Whatever the causes, economic principles and actual effects on health care and liberty, the government needs more power. Stripped of its phony claims about reducing costs, this is what socialized medicine � ahem, �reform� � is really about.
needs more power for what?
slowly they will gain your trust, until one day when you least expect it BAM they take your livelihood away. It’s been the plan of us liberal for over 100 years and you, jim, have caught us. if only you weren’t clever enough to see through our cloud of synonyms and NBC we would have taken over the world
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Power for what? Answering this doesn’t involve “catching” anyone; liberals come right out and tell you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GJX8bXduLM
They want power to force individuals to sacrifice their lives and liberty for the so-called “common good.” Who decides what the “common good” is? Whoever is in power.
You know the old saying about being willing to break a few eggs to make an omelet, don’t you?
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Conservatives seemed pretty okay with the same mindset when Bush was starting oil wars and stripping citizens of Constitutional rights under the guise of patriotic wire-tapping. Double-standard?
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Where’s the double-standard? Who said anything about conservatives?
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I think you’ll find that actual conservatives were pretty upset with Dubya , look up Ron Paul sometime. Now if by “conservatives” you meant self-serving slimeballs like John McCain and Lindsay Graham, then you make a hell of a point.
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“oil wars”
???????
Where’s the oil then? If it was oil W was after it would have been FAR cheaper and much easier to just remove the sanctions on Saddam and buy some oil. In fact oil would be MUCH cheaper if the USA had left Saddam in Kuwait and then let him conquer Saudi Arabia. He’d be pumping them dry to fund his wars with Iran. And there’s another benefit - Saddam would have destroyed any facitities in Iran related to atomic bomb tech, no need for toothless UN resolutions or sternly woorded letters!
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Starting an oil war and failboating at your objectives is still a started oil war.
Maybe lifting sanctions on genocidal dictators wouldn’t have been very politically savvy?
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Why is everyone anonymous? I get confused who is arguing with who. First names?
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IP hashes
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Jim, I gather that your opposition to any number of publicly funded services is grounded in your principles. But in this article it seems that you try to make the argument from a practical standpoint, namely, that restricting the available profits for healthcare providers/insurers will hinder the development and advancement of medical technologies. If I misunderstand, my apologies.
If my summary of your fears is correct, however, I must point out that medical tech and healthcare provision are separate industries. Assuming I’m completely driven by profits and I’m a general practice MD, healthcare reform will certainly dissuade me from staying in the field. However, chances are the current market provides incentive for me to churn patients, which limits my ability to provide quality care. On the other hand, if I’m a lab tech, what effect does healthcare reform have on my bottom line? There will still be a demand for my product and the pay will be just as good, whether from Uncle Sam or the private sector.
I raise this point because I feel in principle that helping people to be healthy should not be a for-profit endeavor. Education, policing, and fire prevention aren’t for-profit…why should healthcare be an exception?
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“Education, policing, and fire prevention aren�t for-profit”
Nope, but they sure cost a lot, and seem to be run more for the benefit of Bureaucrats, than for the employees providing services to say nothing of those they purport to serve.
But then they are subject to the Iron Law of Bureaucracy :
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions. In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
I don’t look forward to the day when all health care in the USA is subject to the Iron Law.
PS. Just who do you think pays for medical tech? We can already see rationing of mamagrams for the poor in Califorina.
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-I’m not sure if I’m willing to give Pournelle much regard, so forget the “Iron Law.” Nonetheless your point is well taken: bureaucracies are too often inefficient, corrupt, and fail to serve the purpose for which they exist. So I guess there are two options: a) abolish bureaucracy or b) improve it. Now if you accept Pournelle’s assertion without question, the latter option doesn’t exist. Discussion over. The grown-ups will carry on and attempt to improve these bureaucracies, since they aren’t going away any time soon!
-“cost too much” is really a matter of perspective. I want to see much, much more money spent on public education, and in my city I think our fire department needs help too. Below is a link to a large pictorial of where federal tax dollars go.
http://www.mint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/DAT2010mint.jpg
Dept. of Ed gets ~47 billion. Nat’l Security totals about ~900 billion. Now I know we’ve got two foreign wars, but that’s shameful.
-You misunderstand regarding medical technology. I was referring to technological development (ie, keeping our tech and practices “state of the art”). Access to mammogram machines is an aspect of healthcare provision.
-Rationing already exists. It is conducted by insurance companies as they attempt to maximize profits. There will never be enough doctors/nurses/beds etc for each and every thing that needs treatment. I’d rather an inefficient government decide how to ration as opposed to an amoral insurance company.
-It seems from your post that you’d prefer to let the private sector control healthcare. I say, we’ve seen well enough what that gets us: far too many working people becoming bankrupted by crappy insurance companies, an entire legal industry built around malpractice lawsuits, and of course a good portion of our fellow citizens unable to afford basic coverage. Look around the world; how many developed nations with mandated public insurance have worse healthcare stats than us? The answer may surprise you!
Its really time for the USA to catch up with the civilized world. What kind of beacon on a hill are we?
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“Rationing already exists. It is conducted by insurance companies as they attempt to maximize profits.”
Yeah, I’m REALLY looking forward to fighting with a government bureaucracy instead of an insurance company to get something covered or a bill paid. Ever heard the saying “you can’t fight city hall”? OTOH, there’s usually a way to fight an insurance company.
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The whole impetus behind healthcare reform is that the opposite is true.
Unless you are wealthy enough to fight the insurance companies in court and WIN…that requires some pretty deep pockets, especially since you’d likely be there because of an exhorbitant cost you’ve already had to pay. The biggest problem with libertarianism is, what do you do about poor people?
This isn’t political theory. There are tens of thousands of people who cannot afford to keep up with medical costs right now. These aren’t just the poorest citizens, but working and middle class folks, employed but incapable of paying. The projections for the future are for those steep costs to skyrocket.
Yeah, dealing with bureaucracy sucks, I agree. But the insurance companies have established a record which is simply despicable.
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You can’t blame the current situation on something that does not exist. We don’t have a free-market, so it can’t be a failure of the free-market.
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“But the insurance companies have established a record which is simply despicable.”
How can you even think that the government has done any better? Ever read about the horror stories of the VA or Medicaid?
Just WHAT does the federal government do so well regarding health care that you would have them control everything?
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“-Rationing already exists. It is conducted by insurance companies as they attempt to maximize profits.”
Providing a product for sale is not rationing. Insurance companies maximize profits by selling a product that people want to buy. Unfortunately, government has been forcing them to provide all sorts of stuff that people wouldn’t choose to purchase in a free-market.
“-It seems from your post that you�d prefer to let the private sector control healthcare. I say, we�ve seen well enough what that gets us:”
We don’t have a private sector in health care. What you’ve seen is a 100 years of government controlled health care.
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Why do you assume that being for-profit is at odds with helping people be healthy? To make a profit in a free market requires offering something of value that people are willing to pay for. Those who make the most money under free-market medicine are the ones who provide the most value. A shoddy doctor will lose business to the better ones just like in every other field when it’s left free.
The patient “churn” that you describe is the result of the lack of a free-market in medicine. HMOs, PPO’s, Medicare, Medicaid, are all designed to herd patients into collectivized care. Patients hate this, and would gladly pay for more individualized care if the market was left free for them to do so.
If you are a high-tech lab, it makes all the difference in the world whether the money comes from government or the private sector. For one thing, if it comes from the private sector you’ll know that what you’re doing is actually a value because someone is willing to pay for it. If it comes from government it is driven by political pressures rather than actual demand.
If your lab is developing high-tech equipment you are counting on people who are willing to spend money for the latest technology. This will be a minority of people, but if the technology is valuable to them they will gladly finance it and should have a right to do so. The government, on the other hand, is all about cost reduction. It operates on the principle of political pull and majority will. But a high-tech lab does not cater to the average person, it caters to the minority of sick people who really need the particular technology.
This is not abstract theory, it’s what’s going on right now all over the world. Even here in the U.S., the government is cutting funding to specialists like oncologists and cardiologists and re-directing that funding to general practitioners. This will necessarily reduce the demand for high tech equipment that those specialized fields depend on.
My question is just the opposite as yours. Why shouldn’t education and fire prevention be for profit? I think they should for the same reasons as health care. (Police are different because they an agency of force and thus a proper role for the government.)
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Because in this country our constitution ensures the general welfare of the people. I think basic education and not watching my apartment building burn down are part of that. There are way too many people who wouldn’t be able to afford education and fire prevention. A child born into an impoverished family ought not to be cursed to a lifetime of ignorance and possible immolation just because of who its parents are, you feckless jerk.
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Why do you assume that being for-profit is at odds with helping people be healthy? To make a profit in a free market requires offering something of value that people are willing to pay for. Those who make the most money under free-market medicine are the ones who provide the most value. A shoddy doctor will lose business to the better ones just like in every other field when it’s left free.
The patient “churn” that you describe is the result of the lack of a free-market in medicine. HMOs, PPO’s, Medicare, Medicaid, are all designed to herd patients into collectivized care. Patients hate this, and would gladly pay for more individualized care if the market was left free for them to do so.
If you are a high-tech lab, it makes all the difference in the world whether the money comes from government or the private sector. For one thing, if it comes from the private sector you’ll know that what you’re doing is actually a value because someone is willing to pay for it. If it comes from government it is driven by political pressures rather than actual demand.
If your lab is developing high-tech equipment you are counting on people who are willing to spend money for the latest technology. This will be a minority of people, but if the technology is valuable to them they will gladly finance it and should h
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A True Tale of Canadian Health Care: Why some patients need to go to the U.S. for surgery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRPhltjPSFs
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http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/07/why-prefer-french-health-care
The article is written by an avowed free-market libertarian, about his experiences with US and French health care. Posted just to remind everyone that anecdotal evidence might not be false, but its certainly never the whole truth.
Even a cursory glance at the statistics will tell you that the Canadians are by and large doing better than their American counterparts when it comes to the quality, efficiency, cost, and result of health care provided.
IP hash: f151ec33
This is just comparing two forms of government controlled health care: the U.S. form and the French form. Every problem that was raised regarding both systems is a problem created either by controls over private businesses or forcing individuals to pay for care that they don’t use.
There’s no point in arguing about which system of force (which is what government control of health care is) is worse. Force is antithetical to health care and prosperity.
The proper comparison is between a system of freedom and one of control. In this comparison, freedom wins hands down, not only in health care but all areas.
IP hash: 4e3d7eba
Even a cursory glance at the statistics will tell you that the number of people going from the USA to Canada or France for advanced health care is far lower than the reverse.
But yeah, it’s all good since the permanent political class and the rich will still get the best of care even when Obamacare rations health care available to the proles - for their own good of course.
IP hash: 66013363
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IP hash: 38eb89ac
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