"Something for Nothing"

How many times over do we have to prove that the private-sector does thing better than the government before people will start to believe it? And why do people feel that health care is a service that should be provided for free?

Why can't health care be budgeted for, just like food and housing? For those of you who are uninsured, I guarantee that there are financial sacrifices you could make that would free up enough cash to become insured. Yeah, it's not always easy. Life's not easy. It's not supposed to be. Why should it be the government/taxpayers job's to make life easier on those who choose to buy other commodities and services, rather than have foresight and protect their health? What are some things that we could relinquish to help afford health care? Cigarettes? I hear that's a pricey habit. Not to mention, terrible for your health and will probably make your rates go up. Restaurants? Those get expensive and are generally unhealthy anyway. That nasty shopping habit? Time to tear up the Bloomingdales cards, girl. Is it more important to look like Malibu Barbie or be able to fulfill a prescription or see your doctor regularly?

Point being, there are lots of places to cut the fat in pretty much anyone's budget. And what is more important than your health? There should be no excuses on this one. Have some personal responsibility, take care of yourself, don't wait for the government to bail your ass out. It may be too late, anyway.

Not to mention the numerous reasons why government-run health care has been proven not to work.

Here's a great post from the blog, Carpe Diem:

Entrepreneurs Can Solve Health Care Problems

From Devon Herrick's (National Center for Policy Analysis) study "Health Care Entrepreneurs: The Changing Nature of Providers:"

The market for medical care does not work like other markets. Providers typically do not disclose prices prior to treatment because they do not compete for patients based on price. Payments are usually not made by patients themselves but by third parties — employers, insurance companies or government (only 12% of medical costs are paid directly by patients, see chart above). And the amounts paid are not really market-clearing prices; they are "reimbursement" rates negotiated with bureaucratic institutions and networks. Furthermore, when providers do not compete on price, they usually do not compete on quality either. In fact, in a very real sense, doctors and hospitals are not competing for patients at all — at least not in the way normal businesses compete in markets.

The lack of competition results in a highly artificial market plagued by problems of high costs, inconsistent quality and poor access, according to Devon Herrick at the National Center for Policy Analysis in his study "Health Care Entrepreneurs: The Changing Nature of Providers."

But in health care markets where patients pay directly for all or most of their care, providers almost always compete on the basis of price and quality. Examples include:

Cosmetic surgery: Since it is rarely covered by insurance, patients pay out of pocket and are thus sensitive to prices; they can typically compare prices prior to surgery and pay a price that has been falling over time in real terms (see chart below).


Laser eye surgery: Competition is holding prices in check and improving quality in vision correction surgery, including accurate correction, faster healing, fewer side effects and an
expanded range of conditions that can be treated.

Price competition for drugs: Wal-Mart became the first national retailer to aggressively compete for buyers of generic drugs by charging a low, uniform price ($10 for a 90-day supply). Other chain stores have responded with their own pricing strategies.

Walk-in clinics in shopping malls and drug stores compete by offering low money costs and low time costs, and electronic prescribing improves quality using error-reducing software.

Telephone-based practices: TelaDoc, provides telephone consultations to 2 million customers. It allows patients access to a doctor any time of day from any location and also
uses electronic prescribing to reduce errors.

Medical tourism provides cash-paying patients health care outside of the United States in high-quality facilities that rival domestic facilities. Patients can save 30 to 50 percent by going abroad.

Bottom Line: In health care markets where third-party payers do not pay the bills, the behavior of providers and patients is radically different. In these markets, entrepreneurs compete for patients’ business by offering greater convenience, lower prices and innovative services unavailable in traditional clinical settings. What lesson can we learn from these examples of entrepreneurship in health care? The most important is that entrepreneurs can solve many of the health care problems that critics condemn. Public policy should encourage, not discourage, these efforts.



This promise of "universal health care" is similar to Obama's "Hope" and "Change." As economist, Thomas Sowell wonders, have we not yet figured out that the "promise of something for nothing" is like a pyramid scheme or any number of cons? All of the other countries that currently have universal health care have a number of problems with their systems.


For example:

...new life-saving medications that go immediately into the market in the United States take a much longer time to become available to Canadian patients-- if they ever get approved by the bureaucrats.

No doubt that lowers the cost of medications-- if you count costs solely in money terms, rather than in terms of how many people literally pay with their lives when the bureaucrats are reluctant to buy new pharmaceutical drugs, while they can continue to approve obsolete and cheaper drugs for the same illnesses.

Cancer survival rates are higher in the United States than in Europe. A recent report by the Fraser Institute in Vancouver estimates that annually tens of thousands of Canadians seek medical treatment outside of Canada, even though treatment is free inside Canada and they have to pay themselves for treatment elsewhere.

Other studies show that waiting times for surgery are months longer in Canada, Britain and Australia-- all countries with government-controlled medical care-- than in the United States.

First of all, the average uninsured American has above-average income-- and people living in poverty are already eligible for Medicaid.

There are of course some serious problems with Medicaid, as there is with government medical treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals and with Medicare. But such things only highlight the dangers of having the government take over the rest of the medical sector, given its dangerous failures where it is already involved in medical matters.

The lure of something for nothing may be seductive when you are in good health. But it can become a bitter irony when you are waiting for months for surgery to relieve your pain or when your life hangs in the balance while some bureaucrat decides whether you can get the best medication or something older and cheaper.