And your solution is???? Eliminate health insurance? Abolish medicare?
It isn’t going to happen. You just have to deal with the payor system the way it is. There’s no sense in beating your head against the wall about the fact that some people demand more healthcare than you would like. It’s just the way it’s going to be.
You can tinker with it, but you’re not going to achieve any meaningful gain. We’ve been doing that for decades. It hasn’t worked. You’ve just got to recognize that there will be some waste, and accept it. In fact, the same is true in every industry. You do the best to eliminate waste, but restricting supply as the remedy is sort of like shooting a mosquito with a bazooka. Better to deal with a few mosquito bites.
So we’ve got no choice but to take that “unnecessary” demand as a given, and to focus on other alternatives to reduce costs. Increasing the number of doctors might increase the availability of unnecessary healthcare, but it’s also going to increase the availability of necessary healthcare, and that is what I’m concerned about.
I would be willing to bet money (and that’s what I’d be doing) that increasing the supply would reduce my healthcare expense, not increase it. In fact, if it weren’t so expensive to obtain healthcare, I suspect that more people would be willing to go it alone, without the aid of health insurance, and that in itself would reduce the impact of the disfunctional payor system.
This is no knock on the fact that you are a doctor (because the reality is that a lot of people who aren’t doctors share your view), but every time someone brings up the idea of increasing the supply of doctors, there is an immediate outpouring of negativism at the thought, in my view mostly designed to focus attention on other alternatives, leaving the idea of increasing the number of doctors as the last possible resort.
That’s why we’ve spent 40 years or so debating this issue, and devising solutions that don’t work. No one wants to adopt the solution that is offered by every basic economic textbook, i.e. a free market approach. Everyone has their own reasons for opposing it. Doctors fear that it will negatively impact their incomes. Most of the healthcare industry panders to the opinions of the physicians. Policy makers either have a vested interest in the system failing so that they can institute a socialized system, or a vested interest in not rocking the boat.
Unfortunately, this is going to end in a crisis of greater proportion than the one we have as more baby boomers approach old age. And despite what the socialist zealots think, socialism is not going to “save the day.” We might end up with socialism, but it will still be a system that is a pathetic failure.
I have never said anything about abolishing private insurance. One of the solutions would be for everyone to have and pay for their own health insurance. The availability of private insurance is not the problem but instead employer and government provided insurance which fosters higher healthcare costs.
I would love to see Medicare/caid phased out but I know that this is not going to happen because the American people are addicted to government.
I have no problem increasing the supply of doctors if it is done by the free market. I’m simply stating that under our current payer system it will not result in lower costs. If we go back to a fee for service system where the doctor can set his own prices than increasing supply would lower cost. You are right that there are many doctors who want to see supply limited because it would protect their pocketbook (so they think). I’m not one of them. I want a free and open market in which to compete.
I agree with you 100% that socialism is not the answer – it will only make things worse.