Sheldon Richman
Read This Article!
My friend Shikha Dalmia at the Reason Foundation nails the healthcare issue here. No, we don’t have a free market here, and see what’s happening in Germany and France.Money quote:
The point is that there is no health care model, whether privately or publicly financed, that can offer unlimited access to medical services while containing costs. Ultimately, such a model arrives at a cross roads where it has to either limit access in an arbitrary way, or face uncontrolled cost increases.
Comment by Jacob Steelman on 1 August 2009:
When government regulates a business or becomes involved in operating a business it substitutes its decisions for decisions of the individual consumers in the marketplace. This necessarily distorts the efficient functioning of the market. Distortions and malinvestments occur and the demands of consumers are left unsatisfied. Health care is a business and government regulation has distorted the market by creating artificial demands for certain services thereby resulting in shortages. In an effort to keep costs down doctors are frequently underpaid by the government system and overworked resulting in lower quality of service. Here in Australia which has a state owned health care system the stories are continuous about poor quality of service – patients dying in waiting rooms, giving birth in waiting rooms, patients frequently using emergency room services because making an appointment with a doctor may take months to schedule.