While some medical procedures (like elective cosmetic surgery) allow for informed consumer choice done at leisure, and hence for market solution to their delivery, other (majority) of medical needs are of more urgent nature and hence do not leave would-be patient with either sufficient time and/or with sufficiently unclouded judgment to make an informed consumer choice. Therefore the government will always muddle it.
Milton Friedman bump! (the man is a genius)
Amen, brother. My parents, in the 1950's paid $35 a month for medical coverage for a family of 5 and the doctor came to OUR HOUSE when we were sick.
MSA's are great, but Kennedy butchered the last version and only the self-employed can get the benefit.
thanks for posting this. I admire Milton's brain power. And this article has more than a few "I did not know that" moments..
My father is truly prescient! I remember him watching Ronald Reagan on TV in 1960 and commenting: "Why can't someone like Reagan run for President?"
In the 1970's, with the enactment of Medicare, my father's analysis was that the medical system was doomed to failure unless medical insurance was outlawed, except for disaster coverage. He pointed out that any system which has one party consuming while another party produces and a third party paying, does not contain the proper checks and balances to control pricing.
Friedman took this whole article to come to the same conclusion: "A cure requires reversing course, reprivatizing medical care by eliminating most third-party payment, and restoring the role of insurance to providing protection against major medical catastrophes."
bump
Read later...
Huge sums of money, that could be going to actual health care, are being paid to people who push paper around. Don't even get me started on the ethics of Doctors and nurses who work for insurance companies.
The Dems started this with the HMO; they realized it was a way to socialize medicine. We need to find another way...ASAP.
I'd love to see Milton Friedman nominated for Fed Chairman.
Excellent ideas!
bump
No hope of this solution being adopted, but it would solve the problem.
Here's the problem with my insurance. I'm self-employed, so I had to purchase it myself. I would have liked to purchase a catastrophic plan, but that was not allowed in my state. No, no! New York wants me to have good insurance. So my insurance pays for my doctors' visits (minus $20 co-pay). It pays for my drugs (minus $10 co-pay). It pays for all kinds of things I don't need - like infertility care. I'm 25 for crying out loud! Infertility is the last thing on my mind. But no, New York thinks I need it. Consequently, to have insurance in case I'm hit by a bus (only reason I really need it) I am paying $286 a month. And that's actually a discounted rate.
Read Tonight BUMP!
^