I’m shocked, shocked to discover that politicians brazenly lie. Or that it would be Claire McCaskill this time.
Have you ever noticed how when it’s a Democrat in the White House, the credit for good news goes to his administration and blame for bad news goes to “the government”, but when a Republican is in the White House, just the opposite occurs?
as Kevin wrote almost a year ago:
But healthcare is something too important to be left to the market you say. Or healthcare doesn’t work like other goods because you have to have it inorder to live you say. Doesn’t food meet those same requirements? Yet we allocate food in this country via the free market, and the crisis du jour is obesity. If we stopped allocating healthcare in this country via the current odd employer standing in for government system, and instead allocated healthcare via a free market, the crisis du jour would be longevity.
Michael Barone now observes that HSA accounts are bring market forces to health care:
How many times have you heard that health care costs are rising at record rates? Well, they aren’t any more.
[…]
Something is going on out there. Politicians and political commentators always assume that government must do something new and different if health care costs are to be held down to bearable increases. But the evidence is that health care costs are being held down, by the workings of the marketplace, partly in response to health care legislation passed in the last four years.
[…]
The other interesting development is the emergence of health insurance policies that encourage healthy behavior. Health care experts note that the increasing incidence of diabetes and other obesity-related diseases threatens to hugely increase health care costs in future years.
[…]
The overriding assumption in much commentary on health care finance is that individuals and companies are helpless automata waiting for government action before anything can be done anything about health care costs. But recent developments suggest that, in fact, employers and employees are active players, and that provisions of recent legislation that were not much noticed by the commentariat have enabled them to take action that reduces costs and provides increased benefits and incentives for healthier behavior.We have problems, yes, but we are not helpless.
I don’t know that we are at risk for a longevity crisis yet, but it’s a welcome developement that market incentives are finding their way into the health care equation.
May 4
From the Great Minds think alike department:
“If you ask most people about the cost of medical care, they may tell you how much they have to pay per visit to their doctor’s office or the monthly bill for their prescription drugs. But these are not the costs of medical care. These are the prices paid. The difference between prices and costs is not just a fine distinction made by economists. Prices are what pay for costs — and if they do not pay enough to cover the costs, then centuries of history in countries around the world show that the supply is going to decline in quantity or quality, or both.”
——————Thomas Sowell 5/4/04
“I’ve noticed that a lot of Democrats and some Republicans have difficulty with the difference between price and cost. Cost is what it takes to make or provide something. Price is what you are charged for the thing or service. Politicians are constantly telling me how they are going to lower the cost of something — typically healthcare, ocasionally housing — when all they are going to do is lower the obvious price and do nothing for cost. Are they going to do anything about the government regulation and oversight that adds to the cost? Heck no. They’re going to have a single pay system dictate price. It’s enough to make you vote Libertarian.”
——————–Kevin Murphy 3/9/04
I’d like to claim “advantage blogosphere” but I can’t since Thomas Sowell has been pointing this difference out for a long time and he’s the guy who first clued me into the difference.
The problem with healthcare is that we’ve got a half-baked system that is socialism on the cheap, substituting employers for the government where possible. This leads to a lot of well meaning people to advocate full socialism for medicine – the single payer system. They are convinced that in this case, full socialism will work. The problem is, full socialism never works, and shouldn’t be tolerated for something as important as healthcare. The real answer is to end the partial half-baked socialism by getting employers out of the picture and get a market (yes, a well regulated one) in healthcare going.
Feb 18
The Canadian Medical Association is happy that the Canadian Healthcare system is fair when it takes far too long to provide treatment. By that they mean that rich people wait just as long as poor people for their “elective” surgeries. The lead investigator said, “In a system of mixed private and public, and people buy their way to the front of the line, equity isn’t an issue. That’s not what the goal of the system is. But so long as there is this effective monopoly, we have to be sure that we’re being fair to everybody and not discriminating on the basis of social position. And we’re happy in this instance we’ve shown that.” Well, fine and dandy. But the report didn’t address the difference in wait times for wealthy Canadians who came to the United States to have their elective surgeries done — thus buying their way to the front of a different line. It only took them seven years to complete the study — which is considered speedy for Canadian medicine.
I took my father to the hospital for an MRI this morning. For all the bustle and self-important people striding about, hospitals always seem to function on their own time — a notch or two slower than the Post Office. After my daughter was in the hospital for her heart surgery, I’ve maintained that a day in the hospital is like a week of real time.
They told my father to be there at 7 AM. They didn’t start the process for him until 8:10 AM. His doctor had sent over forms ordering a brain scan, but supplied some other material indicating back scan. After they got that cleared up, another doctor came out to ask a question because he couldn’t read the ordering doctor’s handwriting. We couldn’t understand him (I thought his accent was Eastern European), but after my father went on at great length about why he was there, he seemed satisfied.
As soon as my father went off to change into that delightful hospital gown, they asked a couple of the other people waiting if they wanted to go to the MRI facility in another tower because they were backed up at this one. As far as I could tell, 10 minutes after starting, they were already 30 minutes behind schedule. That’s the medical profession for you. They’re going to be there all day, so you might as well be, too.
I see two problems with our health care system, and no, it’s not the lack of health insurance for a lot of people or the lack of a single payer. The first problem is the whole third party pay for health care. By and large, the patient isn’t the customer, the employer or the government is. This leads to the crap you have to put up with a patient — the wasting of your time on a prodigious scale, the condescension, the constant questioning if the treatment is the best or just the cheapest. The other problem is that we don’t have enough doctors. I know it seems like a crazy complaint for someone who, if you couldn’t tell, doesn’t care for too many doctors. But the point is, part of the lack of competition is the undersupply of doctors. Have you ever heard of an out of work doctor? The supply is carefully controlled to insure that never happens, and not for the patients’ benefit.
Anyway, that’s the sort of stuff that goes through your mind as you wait around all morning long.
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