Here To Help Us
According to The Wall Street Journal, health care costs for employers are rising twice as fast as wages/inflation. The average family premium is more than $11,000. I don’t know abut you, but I can remember working for a lot less pay than that.
People wonder why health care costs go up, and I’ve got a theory.
Unlike most goods and services we buy, health care suppliers are not even close to operating in a free market. You reckon that could have anything to do with it?
The very supply of physicians is greatly influenced by the guvmint providing the money to create interns or resident physicians.
Even worse, in most places you cannot build a hospital — or even a major new piece of equipment for a current hospital — without first getting the guvmint to agree that the facility or equipment is “needed.” Now how the hell can you do business like that? Can you imagine Walmart, Holiday Inn, Office Depot, or McDonald’s having to ask the guvmint if the community “needs” a new store/hotel? No. We leave such decisions to business people on a ”win-lose-or-draw” basis, and we have come out very well with that system.
Hospitals do not have the right to turn away people who can’t pay. We would never force a grocery store to provide free goods and services to poor folks, but we require it of health care providers.
Of course the airline business was greatly controlled until 28 years ago, particularly in the areas of supply and demand. What scares me is how many people want to go back to that system.
Damned if I understand it.
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Rick–
Thanks so much for commenting.
Yes, all business is regulated to some extent. But not like medical care is and airlines were.
I cannot agree that airline market regulation was a good thing or that deregulation was a bad thing. I, too, remember flying under market regulation. It was pleasant, but only for the small percentage of people who could afford it. Today we fly more people more safely for less money.
Don’t know from whence your arguments come, but mine are based largely on the ideas of Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner in economics.
Thanks again for your comment.
Ralph Hood
I respectfully beg to differ. Local government is involved in the construction of a new Walmart, Holiday Inn, Office Depot, or McDonald’s. They do this through zoning and business permitting. And there have been instances where these organizations have been denied. The constraints that are put on entrepeneurs (including hospital organizations) exist to prevent a condition of “buyer beware”.
I believe the constraints of the CBA on airlines were actually benficial to the airlines and the country as a whole. The current “eat or be eaten” environment of the airlines is responsible for overall ticket prices dropping (as predicted the market worked)However, is it worth the cost to our humanity? I remember flying pre-deregulation. It was less stressful and much more available on a local level.
There is a good reason for the oversight that you complain about. The market place can solve many things. I doubt that the end result will be eqitable to everyone. I suspect relying on the market place will for health provisions will only yeild the same result as airline deregulation had on the air travel industry.
TO: Ralph Hood
At our General Aviation Airport the cost of the Rental Car delivered to our customer that flys in is $10.00 to cover part of our airport Fee to operate.
The only other fee is 6.75% Sales Tax.
Park your airplane overnite for free if you buy fuel at the curent Rate of $3.77/gal including Tax.
That’s how it is at ( 1G3 ) The Airport in Stow, Ohio.
The moral of the story is “Fly Yourself” and stay away from the “City Slickers”.
Best Regards
Al Beckwith since 1966
Commercial Aviation Corp
Michael–
Thanks for commenting. Yep, that’s what a lot of folks say. The industry is so complex it needs supply regulation or big companies would dominate and we couldn’t get affordable healthcare. Heck, we can’t get affordable healthcare now. Nobody has ever explained to me…(1) How would allowing more competition make the price go up, and (2) How come that doesn’t happen in other industries? Throughout history, more and freer competition has led to lower prices, not the other way around.
Also, if we want healthcare for the needy shouldn’t we tax all of society to pay for it instead of forcing the healthcare industry to provide it for free? That’s the way we provide charity in other industries.
Ralph Hood
Ralph:
If the government didn’t step in and provide stiff regulation in such a complex industry, we’d be at the mercy of the big (hospital) companies and they’d control the market and our ability to get affordable healthcare. (Sounds like the airline industry at one time. It might even get that way again, if UAL merges with one of smaller airlines!)
BTW, I can pass on a meal or two. Can’t do the same on a bullet wound, seizure, or busted artery. I’m glad there’s a law that doesn’t allow them to turn away those that can’t afford healthcare. God knows where we’d be without them.