Kling Kong on Health Care

Arnold Kling is an excellent and provocative economist, writer, blogger, and more.

The folks at Catallarchy have an excellent Q&A with Kling, keyed to the release of Crisis of Abundance, his important new book about health insurance. Snippets:

"There is very little chance that my house will burn down. But if it happens, and I'm not insured, it's a financial disaster. So I insure. For most people in most years, fire insurance pays no claims. With health 'insurance,' most people in most years are paid claims. I call it insulation, because it acts as a layer of insulation between the consumer and medical bills."…

"The doctor is the gatekeeper to the hospital and to the pharmacy. My guess is that you'll have to pry away their keys to those gates from their cold, dead fingers."

Whole thing here.