Comments on: Flippery-floppery

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:30:57 +0000

“Medicare is one of the most popular, successful government programs around.”

Medicare is already paying more in benefits than it is receiving: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/101833.php

How can the program be one of the most successful programs around if it is in the middle of a financial collapse?

Fewer and fewer physicians are accepting Medicaid and Medicare payments. Sure, patients love being on those programs because of how little it costs them personally and if they can find someone who will take them, which is becoming more and more improbable.

“If you want to argue for a free market, do so. But that’s not what the conservatives in DC are arguing for.”

As far as I recall from the last general election, the main thrust of McCain’s healthcare proposal was to reverse the awful government-instituted employer-based healthcare plan which has caused so many problems over the 50 years. This was a plan to reverse government intervention to return healthcare closer to the free-market it was long ago.

By: dx

dx — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:53:02 +0000

Medicare is one of the most popular, successful government programs around. Lots of folks would rather be on Medicare than their private insurance – and Medicare, like the FDA and licensure, exists to protect the patient (in this case, the elderly patient).

Yes, any intervention by the government is going to have a market-distorting effect; licensure and prescription regulation are done in the name of “patient protection”, but they also create an artificial scarcity that makes care drastically more expensive for patients. Some distortions are to the benefit of patients, but more often in the last fifty years those distortions have been to the detriment of patients.

If you want to argue for a free market, do so. But that’s not what the conservatives in DC are arguing for. Right now, they are arguing against only those distortions that don’t benefit their interests. In your case, you’re arguing from your interests as a physician; that’s understandable, but you can’t pretend your interests define what is and isn’t a “free market”.

If you’re not prepared to argue for a totally free market, then we have to accept that some government interference is necessary; I think that interference should be more tilted in favor of patients. I think that patients – not doctors, not insurers, and not even “markets” – are the point of health care, and we should be designing a health care system accordingly.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:25:55 +0000

First, the government has tried allocating resources for the past 50 years with Medicare and Medicaid but look at where we are today. And before that, the government interfered with employer-based medical coverage but look at where we are today! Two examples of the government getting involved over the years to dramatically change the nature of the healthcare market. It has not been a free market for over half a century. It is really a shame when people fail to realize that the government has been the one involved over all these years mucking things up.

Second, the FDA and licensure laws exist for the protection of the patient. The government’s denial of services and efforts to cause shortages of medical service are hardly in the best interest of the patient. It is in the best interest of the government to pay as little out as possible to decrease costs.

Lastly, why would the government be the solution to today’s healthcare problems if the government is what caused these problems in the first place? Remember HMOs? That was not a corporation problem: that was a government problem.

By: dx

dx — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:41:46 +0000

No conservative legislator is actually arguing for genuinely free market competition in health care, in which government involvement was eliminated – meaning no physician licensure laws, no prescription drug regulations, no FDA, no Medicare and no Medicaid, no tax credits for health insurance, no non-profit status for hospitals, and so on. Instead, they’re arguing for a highly regulated market, but regulated in such a way as to favor specific corporate interests. They seem to think – still, despite all the evidence – that corporations are always better than government at solving problems.

If the core problem in health care was the efficient allocation of resources, the free market would be the way to go. But it isn’t – instead, the problem is the equitable allocation of resources. Corporations haven’t done a very good job of that; now we’re going to see what government can do.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:40:17 +0000

The commenter on that story said it best:

“You are are not providing the entire story and thereby are misleading your readers. When conservatives say that competition is good, we are talking about free market competition. You are leading your readers to believe that government programs compete on equal footing with their competitors in the free market. This is a false premise.
All government programs have unfair advantages over their free market counterparts. Whether it is regulations or subsidies. On a global scale we see this all the time when American companies try to compete with subsidized foreign companies. I think it is fair to say that we all would agree that this is not fair free market competition. Government interference in the “FREE” markets, while well meaning, almost always has extremely negative impacts on some sector of the free markets. Just look at what they have done with the mortgage industry. “FREE” Market competition is good – not just market competition”

In other words, the government is inherently inefficient. But, it is able to “out-compete” because it works at an unfair level. It is able to fix prices with price ceilings, upsetting market equilibrium; the result is shortages of medical services because of excess demand.

Take, for instance, Dubai’s national airline “Emirates”. They are not inherently more efficient, but it is able to “out-compete” other international airlines because of extremely heavy subsidization from the government and unfair rules which favor its own airline.

Why do we just go for the government model for healthcare?

People do not like waiting. People do not like shortages. People do not like being told “no”. People do not like other people making decisions for them. People do not like old technology.

Sure, the government model “out-competes” the free-market because it has the unfair advantage and may seem better at a superficial understanding, but for the reasons I gave, Americans will not stand for it.