Health Care

The single most effective challenge to the United States’ adherence to a market system is in the realm of health care. What most of the defenders of a market system fail to recognize is that the United States health care system is already decidedly non-market.

As Edith Rasell argues:

“But for at least two reasons the price and sales of health care services are not restrained by the usual market forces. First, for many people, not buying a recommended health care service is not an option. If a doctor recommends a particular medicine or procedure, most people will follow the recommendation, even if it means going without other things to pay for it. In many cases the price of the test or procedure plays a small role in the decision about whether to buy it.

The influence of market forces on health care is also influenced by the fact that most people have health insurance. Having health care coverage is a priority for many people, despite the expense. But when someone has an insurance policy, the cost of actual care is only a fraction of the total cost and may be zero. Thus, the effect of price on determining if the service will be purchased is diminished.” (70)

Further undermining the competitive nature of the industry is that the individuals who are best able to distinguish between the competing insurance corporations (i.e. the sickly) are the self-same customers that the companies look to avoid in order to keep down rates. Thus, in some sense, there is a real positive incentive for insurance companies to provide disservice, so as not to attract too many knowledgeable invalids.

Since a simple market model of the United States health care system is so dreadfully flawed, opponents of a socialized approach to medicine are disingenuous if they represent the medical conflict as one between government control and control by “the invisible hand.” Instead, it becomes merely a contest between the efficiency of two different bureaucracies. Furthermore, since the United States has the highest health care expenditures of any country in the world, spending 13.6% of income on health services, while simultaneously lagging much of the rest of the developed world in life expectancy, and more importantly healthy life expectancy, where it ranks 24th at 70 years, just 1.6 years ahead of nearby Cuba (WHO), it seems a strong argument can be made for at least some fundamental change.

Furthermore, the higher prices of the health care in the United States often go to financing non-essentials. Hospitals have impressive lobbies, and larger financial staffs, but care is not significantly improved. In addition to this effect the complexity of the health insurance industry “created costs of $67 billion over and above what the United States would pay if it had Canadian type institutions” (White 151). In a country where over 15% of the population lacks adequate health coverage, that’s $67 billion that could certainly be put to better use.

Rasell, Edith. “Health Care Reform.” Reclaiming Properity. Ed. Tom Schafer and Jeff Faux. London: M. E. Sharpe, 1996.

EMR System – e-MDs is a highly secure EMR system.

White, Jospeh. Competing solutions: American health care proposals and international experience. Washington. Brookings. 1995.

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