New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | February 24, 2006

We're spending an ever-larger portion of the national income on health care--and Ron Bailey thinks that's a good thing.

Comments

|2.24.06 @ 9:57AM|#

Well done. This reminds me of that other industry -- energy -- where increased spending is similarly bemoaned. Market-driven price spikes aside, doesn't this mean we have more stuff to energize, more places to go, more leisure time and more money to do it all with? That's a good thing, isn't it?

|2.24.06 @ 10:24AM|#

I'd like to know how much health care is coerced "care". If forced rehab for blowing a .08 and urine sampling for high school athletes gets counted as health care, maybe the numbers are getting skewed.

|2.24.06 @ 11:27AM|#

It doesn't sound like unqualified good news to me, because there's no easy way to establish a free market in health care. For starters, the consumer is frequently in duress purely as a result of needing the service, which mucks up any notion of a voluntary exchange of goods & services. And, because of this, the almost universal social policy will be to allow these services to be distributed by non-market means.
I don't see any way for ever-expanding health care to be delivered in a satisfactory way that is not tied to an increase in state power.

Mike|2.24.06 @ 11:42AM|#

"But let's set equity issues aside for now."

That's like saying, "for now, let's ignore the deadly spider on your back and focus on the beautiful sunset."

It's no wonder Libertarians don't get a place at the political table.

|2.24.06 @ 11:56AM|#

These kinds of opinions are so depressing. The increase in spending on health care may not have a political remedy (that isn't worse than the original disease), but surely that doesn't mean we have to celebrate it, do we???

Health care cost increases are the single largest factor preventing wages from rising right now, please let's hold off on the party just because the "interventionists" are upset ...

Larry A|2.24.06 @ 12:38PM|#

A major reason why we spend more on health care today is simply that more is available.

When I was born the only two ways to look inside the body were X-rays and surgery. No one paid hundreds of dollars for CAT scans, etc. because they hadn't been invented.

And if you got cancer, you were just SOL. Treating it wasn't expensive because there weren't any treatments to spend significant money on.

In high school I once had a summer job as an ambulance driver. The ambulance belonged to the local funeral home. All we did is pick up and deliver. We didn't even carry a first-aid kit. I don't remember exactly how much we charged for a run, but it was well under $50.

|2.24.06 @ 12:53PM|#

Mike: Can't address all issues in a 1000 word column, but if you'd like more of my views on how to get health care to everybody see my proposal for mandatory universal private health insurance.

|2.24.06 @ 1:04PM|#

"But let's set equity issues aside for now."

That's like saying, "for now, let's ignore the deadly spider on your back and focus on the beautiful sunset."

No, it is more like saying "But let's set Santa Clause aside for now". Many people believe in Santa, and would be offended if you insulted him, but he is still a myth.

Likewise, the idea that the state can somehow bring about equity is a myth. I live in Canada, which has the most extreme form of socialized medicine in the industrialized world (Only 3 countries in the world make private medical care completly illegal: Cuba, North Korea, and Canada). Ultra rich people and the political elite get great care... middle class people get about the same care as uninsured people living in poverty in the United States, and of course if you are inuit living in Nunivut, or a former fisherman in Newfoundland (they banned fishing, so they all collect welfare now), you had better find some medicinal herbs growing in your backyard somewhere cause your ass ain't going to a doctor! Comparing health care in Canada with health care in the U.S., I would say the "socialized" systen in Canada leads to far more extreme inequality than the quasi-socialized system in the United States.

I mean, using government policy to promote equality is like using a flamethrower to promote healthy skin. It is a contradiction. The state is a power heirarchy - it is, by it's very nature, a machine for producing inequality. Government can only create violent inequality.

We, as libertarians need to let people know that government = inequality... government = racism ... government = poverty for the masses.

|2.24.06 @ 2:24PM|#

In re: Canadian vs US healthcare--I recommend that you all rent the movie "The Barbarian Invasions". Not only is it a good little movie, but it's very instructive regarding the salient differences between the two systems. And made by a Canadian!

|2.24.06 @ 3:44PM|#

Reasons that US health care is expensive:

1: The FDA process makes it much more expensive to develop drugs than it has to be.

2: The rest of the world free rides on the US pharma industry

3: Charitable care gets used up by hard cases: the same homeless addict who always overdoses, gets pregnant and keeps using, etc...

4: There are more and better treatments available today. Would you rather have 1960's prices and 1960's care or 2006 prices and 2006 care?

5: Probably the biggest reason health care is expensive is because we individually pay so little for it. What most people have isn't really health insurance, it's more like splitting the tab equally at a restaurant: there's no incentive to not order the lobster, so everyone does. Think of it this way, when was the last time you asked what some test would cost when you went to the doctor? Do you behave that way when you buy other goods and services?

|2.24.06 @ 4:13PM|#

What most people have isn't really health insurance, it's more like splitting the tab equally at a restaurant:...

Well said. While I realize that a lot of Hit & Runners understand this, it does not seem to be spreading into the public at large.

|2.24.06 @ 4:28PM|#

I swear to god there was a

[/bitter sarcasm]

sign at the end of my last post!

Will preview...

|2.24.06 @ 10:53PM|#

Ron Bailey,

http://www.reason.com/0411/fe.rb.mandatory.shtml

Your link listed above to a mandatory private health insurance system sounds good. My libertarian reflexes kicked in at the thought of government funded vouchers for such insurance for some folks. Then I realized that we all wind up paying for this stuff anyway, one way or the other. And as you pointed out, the notion that we are going to somehow persuade the public to stop funding health coverage for the poor and others (elderly mainly) isn't going to happen. We already pay for it, by both direct means such as Medicaid and Medicare, and indirect means by higher insurance costs passed on to us by the hospitals that have to eat the "free" health care not fully covered by medicaid etc.

This is pretty close to the same thing as K-12 education vouchers. The big difference I see is that not everyone gets them, which is a pretty big incentive for us to popularize them now, instead of waiting for more people to make it onto the public healthcare dole.

At least this way we get to have the benefits of a healthcare system with patient choice instead of bureaucrat choice, and a system with "healthy" incentives for medical innovation on the part of investors, and industriousness on the part of doctors.