Graham wraps up his ”Health Care’s Broke” series by advocating a fix: implement single-payer. In support of this proposition, he avers that single-payer would provide “direction” to the system. Here is how he puts it:
Pick almost any issue I’ve mentioned–or haven’t–that concerns you, and ask yourself if you think it’ll go anywhere without some sort of organized plan or director at the helm.
This provides a window into the quaint view of health care economics that many single-payer advocates bring to the reform debate. They actually believe that the government can “direct” the $2 trillion behemoth that is U.S. health care.
Similarly naïve assertions are, of course, often made about the economy as a whole. One such statement in the NYT prompted Donald Boudreaux, Chairman of the Department of Economics at GMU, to write the following:
It’s astonishing how prevalent is the view that economies are “run” by people pulling levers — or should be, or could be, run by people pulling levers. This misconception is the economics equivalent of the belief that the earth is flat, or that volcanoes won’t erupt if they are fed a sufficient number of virgins.
By way of explaining that no entity can possibly have enough information to “direct” such a complex system, Boudreaux points out that such knowledge isn’t even available for the production of an ordinary pencil.
There is only one thing that can “direct” the efficient production of a pencil—-the market. And the market is the only real solution to the health care problems that Graham and others want to solve.
Comments 2
Well, of course. Graham is a bright young guy who has led a totally insular life. He still BELIEVES, and hasn’t had any experiences in the real world of adults that will correct his mis understandings about the ability of any large group of people to totally screw something up.
Face it: In his entire life he’s had to get (perhaps) three drivers licenses, perhaps pay taxes a couple of times, most likely never had to build a house or get a mortgage on one, never had to run any sort of a business more involved than a lemonaide stand (no permits), etc. He has zero experience with federal bureaucracy.
This will change.
Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 9:02 am ¶Agreed, Graham is wrong when he suggests that single payer would “direct” health care in the US. But has any other single payer advocate suggested that? Under single payer, as would be established under HR 676, for example, providers still compete for patients, and patients have more choie of providers than they do now. Nobody is “directed” to do anything.
True, it’s not a free market solution. But the patron saint of free marketers, Friedrich Hayek, himself allowed that, along with police, fire protection and the military, “socialization” of healthcare might be a good thing, and would even help support the proper functioning of a free market economy. As a businessman and serial entrepreneur who wants the least possible governmental intrusion into outr lives, I share Hayek’s sentiment.
For more, see
http://whatsnotso.blogs.com/whatsnotso/2008/03/the-hillbar-hea.html
Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 2:22 am ¶Post a Comment