Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

Health care the Chicago way

Jerry Stratton, October 21, 2009

Doc Zero points out the same thing I wrote about as gravity-based health care. Supply and demand is not a policy, it’s a law. Now, most likely the government policy will be to charge $90 for a $100 service and then extract the rest in taxes and fees as Doctor Zero describes1. But if government policy truly pretends that a service which the market prices at $100 can be priced at $90, then either people will stop providing that service, or they will demand that the cost be made up in other ways.

At its most obvious, you’ll have to use bribes to actually get that service; at its worst you’ll have to grease the doctor’s palm in other less appealing ways. As a customer you’ll have to engage in dishonest activity to get, for example, health care. But what’s really bad about such a system is that it attracts the dishonest as providers as well. If a doctor can’t make a living by charging the legal price, honest people won’t go into the business. Over time, the people who go into the business will be the kind of people who enjoy a culture of corruption.

And we’ll be under the knife in more ways than one.

  1. And remember that you won’t just be paying into the livelihood of the person providing the service—you’ll also be paying for the persons monitoring prices.

  1. <- NY 23 Nobody
  2. Marijuana guidelines ->