On Thu, 2005-04-14 at 16:06 +0100, Tim Bedding wrote: > How does the free market help the poor to get medical aid?
Tim, you may not realize, or perhaps you do, that this question is loaded with assumptions. The primary assumption your question is based on is the assumption that the current cost of medical care is natural result of the market. It is not, and demonstrably so. The current high prices are a direct result of government regulation and bloat. First and foremost we look at the FDA. This is our first culprit. The sheer cost of complying with government testing alone drives the cost of drugs up dramatically. IIRC, the cost of testing often outweighs the cost of development and the first couple years of production. Much of these cost are hidden in the long timeline required. We could develop the cure for AIDS, for example, right now today and it would take about 6 years to become available. Many drugs are simply cost prohibitive because their value to the market is below the cost to get them FDA approved. But wait, there's more! The FDA deals with more than drugs. Any and all "Devices" count too. Here's an example. Cloth feminine pads are under the regulation of the FDA. If your wife, for example, wants to make them fr herself, the FDA has no say. But try to sell them and you get regulated. You can sell a kit that people have to actually assemble themselves, and be good to go. But assemble it yourself and blammo. Extensive testing is now required. Your materials, your supplies, your environment, the whole thing. How would the free market handle this? The same way it handled electronic device safety. In the electronics world you have two companies providing safety certification. Costs are not exorbitant for that. In fact, many devices get dual certified. In the computer industry the hardware is often certified against operating systems for compatibility. Again, no government regulation involved and it works there. Tying into this in a truly pernicious way is "intellectual property". Again, government monopoly protection for a time longer than is needed (which is any amount of time time). Indeed, the pernicious part of it is that the high cost of testing (spoken of as "Development" demands the time for the corporations to recoup their "investment". This prohibits competition as well as much desire to lower price with costs. The drug companies can command the price they do because they have no competition. The price of admission is too high for many new players. This brings us to phase two of the cost cycle. Insurance. Insurance for such a "market" merely serves to keep prices high. When the government mandates or provides a form of insurance, it is a capitulation to high prices. We can see in history that the largest increases in the cost of higher education came only subsequent to the implantation of the notion that the parents (and subsequently government)had a responsibility to pay for it. When we insist that employers pay our insurance for the cost of medicine, or worse when we insist the government do so, the cost is bound to rise, or at least not go much -if any- lower. Now, if the free market decides employers share that burden, it is a natural result. When government does so, it is not a free market. The idea that employers should pay health insurance in fields where health is minimally impacted is nearly identical to the idea that parents should provide post-secondary education for children. These notions are shockingly close to statism/fascism/socialism. They support the idea that others should take care of us as opposed to taking care of ourselves. It's a very greasy slope, IMO. 1. Government mandated testing combined with a government monopoly ON the testing 2. Government enforced medical supplies/medicine monopoly 3. government mandated insurance and/or government funding of health care These are the three largest contributors to high medical care costs. Malpractice insurance is a big one, too. But remember it is government mandated. It falls under cat 3. These factors are crucial because in a free market they simply would not exist. Thus, the free market would not have the high costs we currently see. Under a free market health care industry the costs would be an estimated 50% or less of today's unnatural costs. Now if the "cost of health care" were half of what it is today, would you see much need for government support? I don't. Even if the free market did NOT raise the monetary wealth of citizens, including the poor, the free market health care industry would provide affordable health care for more of the poor than the current government regulated system can. Add in the fact that the free market would provide better monetary wealth to the citizenry and it's not difficult to see how the free market would get good health care to the poor. Indeed, it is difficult to see how it would _not_ do so. Cheers, Bill -- Bill Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
