Health Care: Hubris vs. Humility

In US politics, health care is a hot-button issue. Candidates argue over whose policy is the most compassionate and comprehensive. Social media is full of proclamations that various nationalized systems work just fine, and disagreement can only be evidence of selfishness and hatred.

There is no denying that something is fundamentally broken in American medicine. However, the argument that the blame lies with the free market is completely absurd. For the past century or so, the American Medical Association, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies have been lobbying government for special privileges and protections. This was especially spurred on when Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration imposed wage and price caps during the depression and especially World War 2, resulting in the loophole (or sly subsidy...) of employee benefits being outside the scope of such legislation. Health insurance became tied to employment at this time, and it has been the primary source of coverage for many Americans ever since.

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The added layers of bureaucracy increase costs directly, and also cut off all consumer knowledge of real expenses. Providers are also largely cut off from the price system on their end of the equation, too. The medical industry is rife with arguably unnecessary "just in case" tests and procedures required by insurance companies or malpractice insurers. And then there is the secretarial staff necessary to process all the paperwork adding even more cost to the scheme. Even if there is no corruption whatsoever, this is a recipe for disaster, and it is this way precisely because the free market process is not allowed to work at all.

But economic freedom isn't allowed in the discussion. Instead, the corporate cartel feeding frenzy is presented as if it were the free market, and the alternative trumpeted by so-called progressives is either a price control mandate or an outright government monopoly. Price controls are a terrible idea, and anyone who has even a basic understanding of economics should know this. Government monopolies magnify waste and abuse, and cannot be taken seriously either. Medicare is already deep in the red with unfunded liabilities. The VA is notoriously bad at providing quality care. I have personally experienced the misery of Workman's Comp. And they mean to tell me the problem is solved by making these very systems bigger, and making participation mandatory?

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True, a government monopoly has to produce some level of results, and some people are entirely satisfied with the results of their care, but that doesn't prove it's a good system, much less the best possible option. Costs always exceed the estimations and promises of politicians when any program is proposed, and I certainly don't want medicine to become yet another chain for politicians to yank when they need more money and power. Have we already forgotten what happens every time the debt ceiling needs to be raised because the spendthrifts in DC have no capability or incentive for sound money management in the first place?

Many physicians in the USA are moving to an open pricing model and refusing any sort of insurance whatsoever. The result is inexpensive medication, inexpensive routine office visits, and even affordable surgery. The same goes for laser eye surgery to correct vision problems. It works, plain and simple. We need freedom. Consumer choice drives innovation and constructive competition. Real free markets with open prices and informed voluntary consent are the only path to real progress, despite what the self-professed progressives insist. I don't know what this real progress will look like in any specific detail, but I am absolutely certain what environment it needs. Classical liberalism is the way to achieve a better world, but it requires no intervention from any politicians whatsoever, so it'll never be accepted by the political class and never be allowed on any ballot.

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Of course, this post still only means I am some kind of shill for the insurance companies and big pharma, right? I mean, there are only two options in the false dichotomy of partisan politics, so rejection of nationalization can only mean embracing corporate cartels, no matter what the preceding paragraphs said. I obviously only really wrote this because I hate poor people, the elderly, minorities, and puppies. I hope I get my check from GlaxoSmithKlinePfizerNovartisMerck soon, because STEEMIT ain't paying squat these days even after the fork improvements.