How free should the medical market be?
Posted by Moonage on 27 Jun 2006 | Tagged as: Health Care Debate
Nikhil Rao at Homeland Stupidity pens an excellent artivle on the health care debate. Basically, how free should the market be?
I like the points made there. However, "let the sucker beware" works fine and dandy with used cars. However, when you’re dealing with addictive substances, the game changes IMO. In the case of tobacco, it was free market forever. Then the US and other places decided it was such a horrendous thing that it sued the producers and ostracized anyone that had been legally allowed to get addicted under free market terms in the first place. If we’re going to allow all drugs to be over the counter, we’d better be prepared to deal with the consequences. If we’re going to allow unlicensed doctors, then we need to be prepared to deal with consequences. etc. etc. etc. I’m not in favor a completely free market in medical services. The consequences of abuse are too severe. However, there are some rather simple steps that can be taken to push the medical community closer to free markets. Namely, the Certificate of Need process intentionally limits the number of providers for any given service. What’s the point in that? If they qualify, let them do it. If the funding’s not adequate, the providers will quickly figure that out.
That’s a quick and easy start if you want freer medical markets. If the CoN process were eliminated, then those one-stop clinics would be of a LOT more value.
Ask your state reps what the point of the CON process is in today’s market. I bet you’ll love the answers you get. ( I’d like to see them here. )
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