How could allowing the free markets deal with healthcare fix our system?

Question

I read this on wikipedia about Dr. Ron Paul :

"He supports the U.S. converting to a free market healthcare system, saying in an interview on New Hampshire NPR that the present system is akin to a "corporatist-fascist" system which keeps prices high. He says that in industries with free markets, prices go down due to technological innovation, but because of the corporatist system, this is prevented from happening in healthcare. He opposes the socialized healthcare alternative offered by Democrats as being harmful as well.[32]"


So are we being led to believe that socialist programs are the only alternative when really there are better ways to approach healthcare??

Answer 1

The richest and most connected labor union in the country is the American Medical Association.

The structure of the government entitlement programs that intervene in the American medical market place are such that they sustain the medical monopolists' position. This is because the structure of the market has not evolved in decades. Most of medical practice is frozen in the days of LBJ when Medicaid and Medicare were introduced. The regulatory programs also freeze the structure of medical practice.

In Thailand, for instance, the contraceptive pill is sold in supermarkets. This stops a doctor's encouragement of promiscuity, apart from reducing the costs of medical practice. This is the same for large numbers of supposed prescription drugs.

The occupations of specialist doctor, general practice, nurse and midwife are unduly rigid.

Further, a lot of medical insurance is just bad debt insurance for doctors.

Government funds go to chronic care, but with little for vaccines, that would reduce the work for doctors.

Advertising still remains constricted, as does the patentability of new surgery techniques, etc.

The late Nobel laureate - Milton Friedman - wrote about these matters as long ago as the late 1950s.

Answer 2

Unfortunately for us, whenever the government is involved - the prices will go up no matter what takes place to brig them down - why is that you ask - its because people know they can get the money from the government without any competition - that makes it easy money and they dont have to be responsible for thier actions or choices.

Remove this and you will have true competition - the bad doctors will be known as bad and driven out of business and the good doctors will remain with a higher quality then we have now.

Socialized medicine - where no one is turned away - will only result in inferrior work (since they wont be held responsible) - long lines since everyone will get there for a free handout - more psych problems as symptoms will be terated through drugs rather then root cause problem solving

Socialized medicine needs to be off the table - we have a great medical system here in this country if the government would just stay out of it - get rid of all medical subsidies and the market will right itself over time and we can once again have the most productive medical programs in the entire world

Answer 3

The system in the US does need reform; however, what Obama and the Democrats in Congress just expands on our current problems. When all the political BS is stripped away, health care prices are an economic issue. The only economic factor that has ever lowered a cost without creating shortages is end user price competition. End user price competition can be enhanced by reducing the distance between the end consumer and the price decision and permitting supply to respond to demand. The fundamental problem with the system in the US is the distance between the consumer and the price decision. As the distance between the consumer and provider has increased over the past 75 years and the government has consistently increased restrictions on supply, price increases have ballooned. All the Democrat proposals do is compound this problem. Existing government programs and regulations are a primary driver of the price increases, not a freely functioning market as proponents of expanded government control would have you believe. All existing programs subsidize demand while restricting supply. The only direction costs can go is up. For instance, WWII era wage controls are the reason why employers offer insurance to employees in the US. This just became the norm. There is no market reason for it, but the system has not adapted as needs have changed because government regulations grew to support the current system. Employers select from plans that cover any and all ailments from the first dollar spent. The end consumer has little say or interest in the actual cost of their premium or how that cost is arrived at between the provider, insurance company, and employer. Americans want reform that gives the individual more control of their care, not a bureaucrat in an office building regardless of whether they work for a big insurance company or the government. Reforms that truly expand the power of the individual are not even being considered. Even "moderate" proposals on the table lean towards further removing the individual from the decisions that affect their health. Market based reforms would democratize care by reducing prices through competition between providers and insurers who would more directly deal with consumers. Shortages of service would be minimized as total quantity of care provided grew as supply restrictions were relaxed. Government based reforms will attempt to provide the same quantity of care while lowering costs without utilizing market mechanisms. As a result, rationing is the only tool left in the box. That means a group of bureaucrats in DC will eventually decide who will not receive treatment. (Refer to the mammogram story from this week for an example) Under the Constitution, the government has no right to deny health care to any citizen. The whole point of the Constitution was to outline the limits of government. The Constitution does not give the federal government the right to provide its citizens with anything not explicitly stated in the Constitution because it necessarily means the government must violate the rights of the tax payer to provide for the recipient. For example, the Constitution implicitly prohibits the government from restricting a citizen's ability to travel throughout the country. This in no way gives the government the responsibility to force another individual to give hitchhikers a ride to their destination courtesy of the US tax payer. By their nature, rights cannot be provided or denied by governments. They exist because we are human. Those arguing that health care is a right confuse the term with an entitlement. They believe that they are entitled to the services of another person and that the payer should be coerced to pay under threat of imprisonment and that the service provider should be forced to take a politically determined fee for their service below the level of compensation that accurately reflects the time and effort they put into obtaining the skills necessary to provide the valuable service.

Answer 4

The US medical system is already the best in the world so doesn't need fixing. The USA leads by far in finding new cures, etc and going Marxist would end this advantage to the whole world. Everyone who needs urgent care in the USA gets it - that's the law. It's all the unnecessary add-on procedures for the one in a million chance that if a person has the money to throw away often does (just in case) that seems to be at issue. I see no reason for inefficient government bureaucracies to provide this at tax payer expense.

Whenever government gets involved, inefficiencies due to increased paperwork, rigid (often silly) requirements, etc lead to higer then needed prices. Whenever competition is disallowed, prices are higher (even when "regulated"). This has been shown time after time in historical examples and the resultant economic implosion from having the government do practically everything is what caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

Ron Paul has some solid (and all-American) ideas. If his idea of national defense wasn't to bury our head in the sand and hope the world doesn't kick our exposed butt, I'd be tempted to vote for him.

Answer 5

With competition & the government out of it. I remember before medicare insurance was cheap. Over 95 percent had insurance. Those that didn't wren't turned away. The more and mnore government has gotten involved the more expensive everything is and the worse things have gotten. I sure don't want to get like these countries with socialized medicine and have to wait 6 months to get tested for a disease.

Answer 6

YOU GOT IT!!! Espicially the way they keep calling it "socialized" it gets people's backs up because we in the US are inherently "anti-socialist, anti communist" and it's ingrained in our psyche that it's BAD. So, yeah, I havet o say, we are being manipulated AGAIN. (shocking, I know)

Ron Paul 2008